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NOW, THEN, PRACTICE THE YELL." — Page 192. 






TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

OR 

FROM TYPECASE TO EDITOR’S CHAIR 


By ALLEN CHAPMAN 

AUTHOR OF “ THE YOUNG EXPRESS AGENT,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 

CUPPLES & LEON 


A 



LIBRARY of CONGKESS 
Two Cooies Received 


AUG 3 1906 


P 

-m.Ass i 



Ct XXc. No. 



Copyright , iqo6, 

By CUPPLES & LEON. 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS. 


PREFACE 


This volume is the second book in “The 
Boys of Business Series,” a line in which it is my 
intention to tell something of the doings of 
bright, manly youths who start out in life with 
the intention of making something of themselves. 

The first volume of this series was “ The 
Young Express Agent,” relating the doings of 
Bart Stirling, showing how he took his father’s 
place in the office, and “won out,” despite the 
doings of several enemies who were jealous of his 
rise in life. 

Bart had two young friends, Bob and Darry 
Haven, both interested in the printing business, 
and in this present story I tell how the Haven 
Brothers became firmly established, both as job 
printers and as publishers of a local weekly news- 
paper. Many glimpses are given into a real print- 
ing office of to-day, and an idea is also given 
of the keen rivalry that exists in the trade, es- 


IV 


PREFACE 


pecially in a town of small size. The rivalry 
was not always fair and aboveboard, and how 
Bob and Darry occasionally suffered will be 
found in the pages that follow. The publishing 
of even a small country paper is no mean task, 
and the Haven boys richly deserved the success 
that at last crowned their untiring efforts. 


May i, 1906. 


Allen Chapman. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Printer’s Ink i 

II. Making a Start 12 

III. Hemp Carson’s Revenge 23 

IV. The Mysterious Stranger 32 

V. A Trick of the Enemy 43 

VI. ‘‘The Soul of a Gentleman” .... 51 

VII. Collecting a Bill 66 

VIII. An Old Acquaintance 80 

IX. “Ducks!” 92 

X. Stet 101 

XI. The Zebra Dog 111 

XII. Percy St. Clair 119 

XIII. A Golden Dream 128 

XIV. Too Late 138 

XV. Brave Darry 148 

XVI. At the Auction 158 

XVII. Free Advertising 166 

XVIII. A Plot of the Enemy 174 

XIX. An Hour of Suspense 182 

XX. Vol. I— No. I 189 

XXI. The Young Editor 195 


v 


VI 


CONTENTS 


XXII. “The Scoop of the Century” .... 203 

XXIII. On the Train 211 

XXIV. In the Toils 218 

XXV. True to the Line! 225 

XXVI. A Hero from the Depths 231 

XXVII. Conclusion 238 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


CHAPTER I 
printers' ink 

“ If we can land that job, Bob, it will mean a 
good deal to us." 

Darry Haven spoke the words importantly. 
His brother Bob looked as serious and earnest as 
if they were two representative business men decid- 
ing the fate of all Pleasantville. 

“It's a fine start if we do get that job," de- 
clared Bob. “ In the first place it's a big order 
for such small fry as us. Then it will test just 
what the new press can do. Finally, it will show 
our mettle as up-to-date printers, and the principal 
point — the money — is not to be sneezed at." 

The two boys stood on a side street just off the 
busy central thoroughfare of the town. A cin- 
dered walk led some fifty feet through the middle 
of a vacant lot, and up to the open doorway of a 

two-story unpainted structure. 

1 


2 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


The building had once been a carpenter shop. 
It was now used for another purpose, as told by a 
big white-lettered sign bearing the single word : 

Printing. 

The end of a type case showed near a window. 
Beyond it was a large composing stone. Shining 
black as to frame, and silver clear as to plate, a 
brand-new job press, run by foot power, faced the 
door and the street. 

Bob wore a three-cornered cap made of manilla 
paper, and a long apron reaching from neck to 
ankles. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, 
his finger tips were daubed, and careless dark 
blotches of printers' ink marked his forearms. 

He held in one hand a composing stick, carry- 
ing half a dozen lines of type on which he had been 
busy when he followed his brother outside. 

In fact Bob was a perfect specimen of the junior 
printer in appearance. At soul he disdained to be 
called an amateur. He was at that- moment as 
proud and high-spirited as the biggest publisher in 
the country. He felt himself neither a “ sub ” nor 
apprentice, but a full-fledged partner in Haven 
Brothers. 


PRINTERS’ INK 


3 


Darry looked “ the outside man ” complete. 
He was neatly dressed, and he suggested business 
strict and prompt in every expression of his fine 
open face, and every move of his well-knit frame. 

He consulted some memoranda on a card in his 
hand. 

“ Yes,” remarked Darry, “ twenty thousand im- 
pressions is a banner run for us.” 

“ Oh, we can handle it all right, if we can get 
it,” observed the dauntless Bob. “ The Novelty 
Works people use a lot of printed matter. If we 
please them on this job, our fortune’s made.” 

<c Not exactly, and not quite just yet,” replied 
Darry with an indulgent smile. “ But, as you say, 
it will be a magnificent start. Well, we’ll soon 
know our fate, Bob.” 

“ Going up to the Novelty Works now?” 

“Yes, Mr. Dawes opens the bids and decides 
at four o’clock. I don’t see how we can miss it,” 
said Darry, but a little anxiously. “We can afford 
to bid lower than anyone else. Our only rival is 
the Pleas^ntville Eagle Job Print, and they are a 
high-priced concern.” 

“Not always,” dissented Bob. “That fellow, 


4 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Hemp Carson, the manager, has been hustling 
actively for business of late. He would think 
nothing of losing five, or ten, or even fifty dollars 
to knock us out.” 

“ You over-estimate our importance, Bob.” 

“ I don’t ! ” retorted Bob staunchly. “ Carson 
knows we are in earnest, and he ’s a small caliber 
man. You laughed at me last night, but if the 
fellow who was sneaking around here and peeking 
through the windows when we moved our stuff in 
here wasn’t Hemp Carson, I’ll eat my hat 1” 

“ Perhaps he is naturally a little curious.” 

“ That isn’t his vice — meanness is. The ex- 
pressman’s boy told me this morning that Carson 
intercepted his father after the moving was done 
last night. He took him over to the Sharp Cor- 
ner. He treated him, and pumped him all kinds 
of ways to find out what type we had, how many 
rollers, if the proof press was a new one, and if we 
had left school for good to go into this business.” 

“ Well,” said Darry, dismissing the subject 
with a determined pressure of his lips, “ we have 
left school for good, Bob, and invested all we 
can scrape together to float this business. Don’t 


PRINTERS’ INK 


5 

forget that Haven Brothers is no frolic, but an 
up and down, make or break, bread and butter 
proposition. ” 

“ Certainly,” said Bob with a solemn motion 
of his head. “Well,” he added, making back 
for the office, “ it won’t be break if hard work 
can stop it ! ” 

“ Pluck clear through — you look good, Bob ! ” 
rallied Darry, waving his partner and brother 
a cheery adieu and proceeding briskly down 
the street. 

Darry experienced all the anxiety of a person 
just going into business and risking his all on 
an experiment. Still, his face was bright and 
eager. 

He could look back to a record crystal-clear, 
and pure and noble ambitions beckoned ahead. 

There were many pleasant things to think 
of in the career that had culminated the day pre- 
vious in the Haven boys graduating from ama- 
teurs into a real firm of printers. 

Darry’s heart had beat very proudly that 
morning, when, after getting everything in order 
at the new office, he looked around at the 


6 


TWO BOV PUBLISHERS 


neat and perfect little printing plant that he and 
Bob could call their own. 

The Havens had lived in Pleasantville for 
a good many years. Mr. George Haven, the 
father, had once been a city editor. His health 
had broken down, however, and he had not 
been able to do much work since Darry, the old- 
est boy, was twelve years of age. 

Mrs. Haven was a refined, educated lady. 
She had the artistic impulse in a marked way, 
and had worked into quite a business doing 
fashion illustrating for some city publishers. 

In the meantime, Darry and Bob had been of 
no little service in helping the family. They 
were naturally handy, accommodating boys, and 
sought out all kinds of odd chores around the 
town from storekeepers and others. 

It was surprising how a little start in saving 
encouraged them to further industrious striv- 
ing, and about a year before the present time 
they had acquired the nucleus of the printing 
enterprise. 

They picked up several old fonts of type at a 
bargain, later got a small press outfit, and, using 


PRINTERS’ INK 


7 


the woodshed for a shop, began printing cards 
for their school friends, and cheap dodgers for 
the smaller local shopkeepers. 

Then “great luck,” as Bob phrased it, came 
their way. Their loyal friend, Bart Stirling, 
succeeded to his father’s position as express agent 
for the B. & M. railroad at Pleasantville. 

The office was short-handed. There was con- 
siderable extra delivering of small parcels to do, 
and the Haven boys got the work. Then Bart 
Stirling threw some office printing their way, en- 
couraging them vastly. 

Their embryo strivings grew rapidly into a great 
ambition. They had but one idea : to buy a reg- 
ular printing outfit and open a regular printing 
office. The enthusiastic Bob cherished the fond 
hope that some day they might show the old 
timers how to get out a real, live newspaper. 

They had stood by Barf Stirling through all his 
troubles, and they had been many, although Bart 
had come out winner. 

“If you start a newspaper here, count me your 
first subscriber,” Bart had said to them, when, as 
a reward for his services the express company gave 


8 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


him a position as assistant manager in an office in 
a near-by city, as already related in another vol- 
ume of this series entitled : “The Young Express 
Agent.” 

Bart had been a valued friend and adviser, and 
the boys felt pretty lonesome after his departure 
for Rockport. 

However, they corresponded regularly with 
him. Besides, at least twice a month Bart ran 
down to Pleasantville on a brief home visit over 
Sunday. Many a Saturday Bart had given them 
till midnight going over their plans. 

When Darry went to the city to buy the new 
printing press, it was Bart Stirling who took him 
around to the supply houses and got him all the 
best discounts. 

The Haven boys had a long final talk with their 
parents, and Bart was present and aided a decision 
with his advice and cooperation. 

It was settled that Darry and Bob should give up 
school, and start in earnest in the printing business. 

Mr. Haven could help some, if their enterprise 
ever ran into the publishing line, and the gifted 
pencil of the mother was also at their service. 


'PRINTERS’ INK 


9 

They needed quarters near the town business 
center, and here again kind fortune favored them. 

An expensive office in the main street business 
block was out of the question. A man working 
as porter at the town hotel generously helped them 
out of their dilemma. 

This was Baker Mills, a queer roving character, 
who owed to Bart Stirling all that he was. 

Mills had at one time gotten into the bad graces 
of Colonel Harrington, the wealthy magnate of 
Pleasantville. The latter had stooped to a plot to 
banish or imprison the poor fellow, who was an 
obstacle in his path. 

Through Bart, the man Baker Mills had been 
enabled to defy and then force the treacherous 
Harrington to a compromise, and Mills had be- 
come a fixture at Pleasantville. 

One night, during a fire, he courageously saved 
the life of a grandchild of an old resident. 

This person owned the old carpenter shop on 
the side street. It had not been used for a year. 
Mills wanted to assist Bart's young friends. 

It was a happy moment for the ambitious young 
printers when Mills brought them permission to 


10 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


use the old shop at their pleasure for two years, 
at a merely nominal rent. 

It was a happier one, the evening previous, 
when, after renovating the old shell, Haven 
Brothers looked around the neatly fitted up print- 
ing office with all the joy and hopefulness of 
snugly-housed proprietors. 

The week before, the bookkeeper at the Novelty 
Works located at the edge of the town had men- 
tioned to Darry that they were in the market for 
twenty thousand circulars. 

Heretofore, the Pleasantville Eagle Job Print 
had practically monopolized the local printing 
situation. 

Darry had put in a bid, and as he went along 
now to receive the decision on the same he was 
naturally eager and anxious. 

It was the most pretentious contract they had 
as yet undertaken, and if the job was awarded to 
them and satisfactorily done, it would certainly 
entitle them to a standing in the community as 
persons of business. 

Darry’s heart beat a trifle faster as he came in 
sight of the long brick building where the Pleas- 


PRINTERS’ INK 


1 1 

antville Novelty Works employed some fifty 
hands, manufacturing light hardware novelties. 

The front portion of the factory was two stories 
high. The second floor comprised the offices of 
the concern. 

Darry pulled down his cuffs trimly, and put on 
his best business look and gait. Then, suddenly, 
he halted at a sharp hail. 

“ Hello, Haven ! Coming up here ? No use, 
I ’ m camped right on the spot, and I ’m going to 
get the job if I have to take it for nothing.” 

The words were called from an open window 
on the office floor. Sprawling there indolently 
was the speaker, the business rival of Haven 
Brothers — big, overgrown Hemp Carson, manager 
of the Pleasantville Eagle Job Print. 


CHAPTER II 


MAKING A START 

Darry Haven was a good deal annoyed at the 
coarse, insolent call of the enemy already within 
the camp. 

Hemp Carson's bold proclamation was a sneer 
and a challenge, backing up one of his customary 
bluffs. 

Darry, however, was politic enough to nod and 
bow sweetly to his rival. 

He also had the nerve to proceed calmly up to 
the office entrance. Darry was determined to join 
the besieger and stand his ground, if it took all day. 

A narrow flight of steps ran up to the office 
landing. Just as Darry pushed open the outside 
door there was a sharp infantile cry. 

He looked up quickly as a dull bump succeeded. 
A neatly-dressed child of about two years, playing 

about the office, had unwittingly backed to the 
12 


MAKING A START 


13 


unguarded landing. The youngster was now com- 
ing down the stairs turning back somersaults. 

The velocity of the descending body was rapid, 
and the chances of dangerous bruises or a broken 
limb extremely sure. 

Darry shot just one glance over the situation. 
Then he made a spring forward and upward, 
throwing himself flat. 

Poised like an expert ball player headed for goal, 
he threw his arms above his head. Darry touched 
the whirling child less than four steps descended. 

He then slid a few inches with the rescued in- 
fant in his grasp, checked one foot, arose, and 
faced new screams, and fluttering, agitated woman- 
kind on the landing. 

“ Oh, dear ! is he killed ? ” panted a nice-look- 
ing lady of about thirty. 

“ Not at all,” answered Darry promptly, with 
a reassuring smile. 

He turned over the kicking, screaming child to 
its mother. She hugged it, carrying it into the 
office kissing it and cooing over it hysterically. 

Darry followed her a step or two into the room. 
She turned towards him. 


H 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Oh, how shall I thank you ! ” she said. 
“He would have been killed if you had not 
stopped him.” 

“ Oh, I think not,” answered Darry lightly. 
“ But I am glad I happened along just in time.” 

“ Humph ! ” 

Darry drew up the corners of his mouth quiz- 
zically as he traced the grunt to its source. 

Big, fat Hemp Carson, sprawling in the chair 
by the window, was regarding him disgustedly. 

The manager of the Pleasantville Eagle Job Print 
was entrenched behind a damp circle of tobacco 
juice which he had bestowed on the floor liberally. 

As she passed by him, the lady with the child 
in her arms drew her dainty skirts aside to evade 
contamination. She gave Carson a look that 
would have stunned the sensibilities of the average 
gentleman. 

Hemp only grinned. Then he turned his 
gaze on Darry, a savage gleam in his eyes. The 
youth was leisurely flecking the dirt from his coat 
where it had come in contact with the dusty stairs. 

“ Humph ! ” again muttered his rival — “ the 
hero act, eh ! ” 


MAKING A START 


15 


<c That so ? ” chirped Darry softly — “ give me 
a write up, then, won't you, Carson? Put in 
some of the fine touches you got into that 
burglary of the bank last week. Of course it 
turned out to be a glazier fixing a broken sash, 
but it was a sensation — and a scoop ! ” 

Hemp Carson colored like a beet. The bank 
burglary was an impulsive stroke of genius on 
his individual part that had made the Eagle 
a laughing-stock for a week. 

“ That's all right,” he said, with a bluster 
of braggadocio. “ The papers sold.” 

“Yes, but how many times can you c sell' the 
long-suffering public ? ” intimated Darry. 

The husky Hemp was getting as good as 
he sent. His humor took a sullen turn, and 
he scowled darkly at Darry. Then he observed 
condescendingly : 

“ Well, run on, little boy ! It’ll be dark soon. 
As I previously informed you, I’m here on the 
spot, which means I’ve cornered the job. Kitty 
at the rathole every time for me ! and you ’re too 
late. See ? Hemp is on hand.” 

“ I see you are,” observed Darry — “ you 


1 6 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

usually announce yourself with your card,” and 
the youth pointed the allusion with a glance 
at the semicircle of tobacco juice. Hemp 
Carson growled, grew purple and subsided. 

Just then the little child, freed from its mother’s 
arms, came toddling over to Darry, extending 
a clothes brush which the lady had taken from 
a table. 

“ Nice man ! ” lisped the little one. fC Kiss 'oo.” 

Darry gave the child a toss that delighted 
it, and with a courteous bow to the lady made 
use of the brush. 

“ Nacky man ! ” added the child, making a 
circle as it avoided the sprawling Hemp and his 
tobacco entrenchment. “ Big foot make Cyril 
fall downstairs.” 

The lady darted dagger glances at Carson. 
Darry wondered who she could be. Like them- 
selves, she seemed to be waiting for Mr. Dawes. 

Then as the owner of the factory came out from 
his private office, smiling at the lady and patting 
the child on the head, Darry guessed that she was 
his wife, — and was glad of it. 

Mr. Dawes was a quick, nervous man absorbed 


MAKING A START 


17 


in his business. He held some papers in his hand, 
and Darry recognized among them the bid of 
Haven Brothers on the twenty thousand circular 
job. 

“ You’re the Eagle man?” said John Dawes, 
to Carson. 

“That’s me — manager.” 

“ I remember you, young man,” continued John 
Dawes, giving Darry a slight nod. “ Well, gentle- 
men, I suppose you want a decision on the circu- 
lars. Your bid was thirty-seven dollars and fifty 
cents,” he added to Darry. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Yours was fifty dollars,” continued Dawes to 
Carson. 

“ Mistake,” mumbled Hemp, a little em- 
barrassed — “ error of our accountant in the orig- 
inal estimate. We changed it this morning.” 

“ I see you did,” said Dawes waving a slip of 
paper, with a queer, critical glance at Carson — “ to 
thirty-seven fifty.” 

“ What ’s that ! ” exclaimed Darry irresistibly, 
taking an impulsive step forward. 

Mr. Dawes shrugged his shoulders and Carson 

B 


1 8 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

giggled. Each knew what was passing in the 
mind of the other. Darry had grown quite white 
about the lips. 

“I want to say,” the youth remarked as calmly 
as he could, but with resolute emphasis, “ that this 
is a singular proceeding. How did you know what 
our bid was ? ” he challenged Carson, and appeal- 
ing to Mr. Dawes, cc is it fair to receive a second 
bid from the same person — under these circum- 
stances ? ” 

“ All *s fair in love and business ! ” observed 
Carson with an attempt at a laugh. 

“Not when it covers a trick! ” asserted Darry 
stormily. “You are acting in an underhanded way, 
Mr. Carson, and I shall stand on my rights. Mr. 
Dawes, you are looking for the lowest bidder?” 

“ Of course.” 

“ I claim to be the lowest bidder.” 

The factory owner hesitated. He had done 
business with the Eagle people for a long time. 
His eyes told eloquent stories, however, as they 
wandered from the coarse, overfed bully to the 
manly, erect business lad whose ingenuous face was 
as clear as crystal. 


MAKING A START 


19 

“ Beg pardon — a telephone call,” he said, as a 
bell rang in his private office. 

Darry continued to glance severely at Carson. 
The latter dared not face him, but, feigning non- 
chalance, got up and walked across the room. 

Darry observed that the lady with the little boy 
had been an interested auditor to the discussion 
just ended. 

He saw her now arise, and with the child go into 
the private office. As the telephone talk there 
ended, he caught the low hum of the voices of man 
and wife. 

Mr. Dawes finally came out alone. He walked 
straight up to Darry, and there was a new light of 
interest in his eyes as he said : 

“ I shall give this job to Haven Brothers.” 

“What's that!” cried Hemp Carson, facing 
around with a start. 

“ Yes,” said the factory owner — “ their bid is 
the lowest.” 

“ We bid the same, did n't we ? ” 

“You mean thirty-seven dollars and fifty 
cents ? '' 

“Yes.” 


20 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ How did you know that was their bid ? ” 

“ We — we found it out. ” 

“ Then you admit it was not a mistake ? ” 
pressed John Dawes — “ but a plan to get the 
work at any figure. I don’t like this subterfuge. 
Further, this young man agrees to put a border 
around the circular. ” 

“ That was n’t in the specifications ! ” cried 
Hemp. 

“No, I make that addition voluntarily,” ex- 
plained Darry. “ We desire to make a record on 
this job, Mr. Dawes, and the border makes an im- 
provement that is an advertisement for us. ” 

“ I see, ” nodded Mr. Dawes. 

“We ’ll put a border on, too,” fumed Hemp, 
getting excited. 

“ I shall award the job — ” 

“ In colors ! ” shouted Hemp desperately. 

“ Here is the copy, Mr. Haven, ” said the fac- 
tory owner quietly. “ When can we have the cir- 
culars ? ” 

“ Thursday noon. ” 

“ Very good.” 

“ Hold on ! ” 


MAKING A START 


21 


Hemp Carson woke up actively. He flounced 
around in a tumult, Mr. Dawes looked inquiring. 

“ Are you going to give that kid the job ? ” de- 
manded Hemp. 

“ He has it already. ” 

cc Against the Eagle , with its big equipment, 
steam presses, its — its prestige and its — its power ! ” 

“ Is that a threat ? ” asked John Dawes with a 
faint smile. 

“ Those kids have a one-horse old junk shop 
in a barn ! 

“I don't care what they have, or where they 
have it, as long as they carry out the contract and 
do the work acceptably." The gentleman turned 
to Darry. “ You shall have a check on delivery, 
and — ” with a glance at his child, who had come 
to the doorway — “ thank you, young man, thank 
you ! ” 

Darry bowed at this recognition of his services 
in behalf of the child. 

Hemp Carson with a sullen face and mut- 
tered ejaculations of spite and venom was stump- 
ing down the stairs. 

Darry seemed to tread air as he came out into 


22 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


the bright sunshine, buttoning up his coat over 
the copy of the first big job that had come to 
Haven Brothers. 

Carson had planted himself against the door- 
post below. He helped himself to a new quid of 
tobacco as he fixed a vicious eye on Darry. 

“ Think you ’ve got us, don’t you ? ” he sneered. 

“ I know we have got the job, ” answered 
Darry clearly. 

“ It may cost you more than you think before 
it ’s delivered, ” muttered Carson darkly. “ Next 
one comes along I’ll be up at daylight ahead of 
you. ” 

c< Then you’ll find us on deck at midnight, ” 
assured Darry buoyantly. 

“ Next time I’ll have a load of specimens on 
hand that will blot you clean out of existence ! ” 

<c All right, ” nodded Darry, “ There ’s some- 
thing else you want to bring along, too, Carson. ” 
Is there ? ” mumbled Hemp suspiciously. 

“ Yes — a cuspidor. Good day, Mr. Carson. 

“ Bah ! ” snarled Hemp. 

“ Boo ! ” retorted Darry Haven, with a merry 
laugh. 


CHAPTER III 


hemp carson's revenge 

Hemp Carson went back to the office of the 
Eagle Job Print in a savage state of mind. 

He had met with a severe rebuff in his course 
of crooked tactics. With his perverse character 
there was no bridge between disappointment and 
revenge. He nursed some very bitter and wicked 
feelings towards Darry and Bob Haven. 

On his way Hemp called at a customer’s store. 
He had had an appointment here for earlier in the 
afternoon, but had neglected to keep it in his 
ardor to capture the Novelty Works job. 

“ Mr. Green waited for you for an hour," ex- 
plained the clerk. u He had to catch a train for 
the city." 

“ Did he leave the copy for the dodgers ? " 
asked Carson. 

“ No, he said he guessed as it was getting late 

23 


24 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


in the month he would let the advertising go over 
until next season.” 

“ Humph ! ” growled Hemp for the third time 
that day, and now more disgustedly than ever. 

Things were going wrong with Hemp. When 
he got to the office, the publisher called him into 
his private room. 

He questioned Carson pointedly about some 
stationery office supplies furnished to the Pickle 
Works the week previous. 

No direct charges of criticism were intimated, 
but the publisher’s manner was strained and 
severe. His manager left his presence feeling de- 
cidedly uneasy. 

“ The old man is onto me, or suspects some- 
thing ! ” muttered Hemp. If that clerk up at 
the Pickle Works has been giving me away, it 
means the stopping of my graft.” 

Hemp Carson had been making commission 
rebates and “ divvies on the side ” ever since he 
started in with the Eagle people. He wondered 
if his ambitious career was about to sustain a 
check. 

“ I’ll have to keep a wary eye out,” he soldo- 


HEMP CARSON’S REVENGE 


25 


quized. “ I'll have to rush in some orders to get 
the old man in good humor, and I’ll work and 
worry him over this Haven deal to distract his 
mind. Drat those kids, anyhow! They’ve 
trimmed me good and proper to-day, but I’ll 
get even — I’ll get even ! ” 

Carson strolled into the press room. The 
weekly paper had been run off the afternoon pre- 
vious, and the place was deserted except for 
the apprentice. 

They called this urchin “ Stet.” In the first 
place his name was Stetson, and it suited as an 
abbreviation. 

Further, Stet is a proofreader’s phrase meaning 
“leave stand” or “same as before,” and Carson 
had thought it profoundly smart to dub the boy 
thus, averring that the underling he cuffed and 
bullied at pleasure was the same yesterday, to-day 
and forever as to uselessness, indolence and 
diminutivenes. 

Stet had not grown an inch in five years. He 
was seventeen and looked twelve, and had a thin 
elfish face and cunning twinkling eyes. 

He was mortally afraid of Hemp Carson, and. 


2 6 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

was his slavey because the manager had given him 
his job there. Carson had borrowed a week's sal- 
ary as “ commission." He had never paid it back. 

Stet had once been unfortunate enough to 
“ pi ” a page of type, that is, mix it up. The 
publisher never found out the culprit. Hemp 
knew, however, and held the knowledge as a per- 
petual club over his miserable underling, repre- 
senting the damage at fifty dollars. 

Stet was washing a page of type with gasoline. 
Carson sprawled out on a pile of printing paper, 
lighting his pipe. 

After a while he hailed the apprentice : 

“ Hi, Stet ! ” 

The apprentice shuffled up to his tyrant mas- 
ter, but keeping out of range. 

“ Got any change ?” inquired Carson. 

“ No sir. ” 

<f Then get some. ” 

“ Yes sir. ” 

"And go over to the hotel and buy me a 
couple of bottles of beer. ” 

“ The boss says he won’t have no more such 
stuff brought in here, ’’ announced Stet awkwardly. 


HEMP CARSON’S REVENGE 


27 


“Never you mind. Get out so he don't see 
you, and get that beer in a jiffy, or I'll find some 
one who will. See ? '' 

Stet tucked his dirty apron in at the waist, put 
on a cap, and made an exit by a back stairs, re- 
turning in about ten minutes with a package 
wrapped in a newspaper. 

Carson lolled and drank for the next hour, 
and saturated himself with tobacco. Finally he 
waddled to his feet like some overgrown pig. 

“ I say, Stet, ” he observed, “ you struck it 
right about the Haven boys bid on that Novelty 
Works job. ” 

“ Yes, sir — I heard 'em say what it was. ” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ Up at the carpenter shop. " 

“Was you there? " 

“ Yes, I was. But they did n't see me. ” 

“ How was that ? " 

“ I knew they'd suspect and keep mum if any- 
body from the Eagle was nosing about. I was 
thinking about busting in a window after dark 
and getting at their papers to find out what you 
wanted to know, but they lock up like a bank. 


28 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


You ’d think that new press of theirs was gold, 
the way they watch it. You see, the time you 
borrowed my salary — ” 

“ What ! ” roared Carson. 

“ I mean when I lost it — ” 

“ That ’s better. ” 

“ The folks raised a row and I f bummed ’ for 
a week — in the loft of the old carpenter shop. ” 

“ Where the printing office is now ? ” 

“ Yes. Last night, when they were moving in 
their traps, I sneaked to the side of the shop. 
There some cleats run up the clapboards to the 
big door upstairs where they used to lift tim- 
ber in. The Havens don’t use the upstairs 
part, where I slept when I did n't go home that 
week. I lay down on the floor last night, and 
peeked and listened. That ’s how I heard about 
the bid. When I got out I let the inside hook 
drop into the staple. The door fits loose, and all 
you ’ve got to do to get in is to shove a pencil 
through the crack and lift up the hook. ” 

“ I see, ” said Carson thoughtfully, and a min- 
ute later he left the room. 

“ Yah ! ” iterated Stet, the minute the man was 


HEMP CARSON’S REVENGE 


29 


out of sight and hearing. “ You ’re a good one, 
you are — yah ! yah ! yah ! ” 

Stet drew from under a shelf a big sheet of pa- 
per. It was a work of art he had constructed 
that afternoon, and comprised a cartoon caricature 
of the unpopular manager on which the composi- 
tors and the pressman had passed many a joke 
when exhibited. 

Stet flung it to the floor and proceeded to kick 
it. Then he danced it to pieces. 

“ Some day, ” he announced, finally out of 
breath and looking tragic — cc some day that’s the 
way I’ll do to Hemp Carson !” 

It was just dark when Hemp Carson appeared 
in action again. He proceeded, via an alleyway, 
to the side street where Haven Brothers had their 
printing shop. 

The shop was dark and locked, and making 
sure that no one was about, Carson ascended the 
cleats Stet had described, opened the door, closed 
it after him, and groped his way across the bare 
loft to a stairway. 

Downstairs he cautiously flared a match. 
Newness, neatness and order prevailed everywhere. 


30 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


The contrast to his own begrimed, disorganized 
printing quarters nettled and nerved him to go on 
with his nefarious task. 

A series of match illuminations enabled him to 
examine press, composing stone and galleys. 

“This is it,” he muttered, bending over a 
chase in which a job in display type showed, 
neatly locked up ready to be fitted to the press. 
“ Yes, it's made ready and proved.” 

The proof, a scrap of paper, lay by the side of 
the chase. 

Carson took up a hammer and chisel and pro- 
ceeded to unlock the chase. Then, with a pair 
of printer’s nippers which he carried in his pocket, 
he removed certain pieces of type. 

He went to a row of type cases and picked out 
other letters, inserted them in the vacant spaces 
he had made, and restored the chase to its orig- 
inal condition. 

He had groped his way upstairs again and de- 
scended to the ground, when he heard footsteps 
on the cindered path leading to the street. He 
ventured to take a peep around the corner of the 
building. 


HEMP CARSON’S REVENGE 


3i 


cc Hello ! anybody around that belongs here ? ” 
instantly challenged the voice of someone, evi- 
dently just arrived at the front door. 

Hemp Carson did not reply, but took to his 
heels down the alley, through a vacant lot and 
into the main street, 

“ Bart Stirling ! ” he panted, as he mixed with 
the crowd. It would n’t do for him to see me. 
Well, my gay young friends, ” he continued, 
apostrophizing the absent Darry and Bob Ha- 
ven, “ I’ve spiked your guns all right. I reckon 
you ’ll find it hard to buck up against Hemp Car- 
son. Slick work does it, and to-night’s job is 
only my starter.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 

If Hemp Carson had made his surreptitious 
visit to the printing establishment of Haven 
Brothers half an hour earlier, he would have met 
the junior partner of that ambitious firm just 
leaving for the day. 

Bob Haven had put in the happiest afternoon 
of his life. If Darry trod on air when he got the 
Novelty Works job, his enthusiastic brother 
seemed to don wings when the good news was 
imparted to him. 

The little printing shop appeared to be full of 
dazzling sunshine, and Bob went around singing 
and whistling likera lark. 

Bob was the office major domo, compositor, 
proofreader, pressman and foreman. He was the 
most expert of the two as to mechanical detail. 

32 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 33 

It had been agreed that he should have charge of 
the printing arrangements. 

Darry, with the affected nonchalance of a suc- 
cessful publisher, handed his brother the copy of . 
the big job. 

Bob, assuming the importance of a foreman 
rushed to death with orders, indifferently stuck 
the sheet of paper on the copy hook with the 
sumptuous remark that “ it would have to take 
its turn.” 

The minute Darry went out on the hunt 
for new business, however, Bob broke loose. 

He set the copy conspicuously on the type 
case, and took up his composing stick in a joyous 
and confident way. 

The circular matter was quite brief. His 
nimble fingers soon set in proper place the 
straight matter composing the body of the cir- 
cular. 

Top and bottom lines, however, required some 
display effect. Bob had a wide selection. He 
tried half a dozen different styles of type, and 
finally settled on a combination that was neat, 

tasteful and striking. 

C 


34 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Bob was an artist. He could not forbear 
running in some arabesque “ curliques ” down 
one side of the matter. Then in the upper left 
hand corner he worked in a delicate cut of a 
flying bird, presumably bringing the circular to 
the recipient. 

He inclosed it all in a neat border, rolled the 
type with ink, and took a flat proof. He corrected 
an inverted comma, adjusted the lines in balance, 
locked up the job in a chase, and took a final 
proof. 

“It’s a dandy, that’s what it is!” declared 
Bob exuberantly. “ The Eagle could n’t begin to 
approach it. That new clear type sticks out like 
embossed work. Now for the paper.” 

The boys had bought an elegant paper cutter, 
worked by weight pressure. 

Bob estimated how many times a sheet of 
forty-four by thirty-two would cut to the circular 
size, and counted out the requisite supply. 

It was a good deal of delight to set the holder 
on the paper, touch the lever, and see the keen 
bright blade sever the sheets true to the center, 
and shaving through like a razor. 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 35 

Bob had just piled up the sheets by the side of 
the press, when he had visitors. 

Bart Stirling’s sisters dropped in to view the 
new plant, and brought with them a girl friend 
from Rockport. 

Bob passed a proud and entrancing half hour 
conducting them about the place and explaining 
the uses of the various articles of equipment. 

He showed Bertha Stirling how they set the type 
in “the cute little steel box,” and he let her 
sister move the ponderous cushioned roller along 
the proof press over a card he set up for her 
bearing her own name. 

The girls went off with their heads full of 
“ pi,” “ quads,” “ pica,” “ long primer,” “ small 
caps ” and other typographical technicalities. 
They assured Bob that they would certainly 
direct lady friends needing cards and sociable 
or concert tickets and programmes to the estab- 
lishment of Haven Brothers. 

Bob swept, dusted, set everything in apple 
pie order, and locked up for the night just at 
dusk. 

“ I wish it was morning,” he declared. “ I’m 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


36 

going to try a lightning run on those twenty 
thousand impressions.” 

Bob went homeward filled with very pleasant 
thoughts. It looked like clear sailing ahead. 
Everything they had at the office was paid for, and 
their first job would give a clear profit. They cer- 
tainly had a clean-cut business start. 

Some boys over on the common were having 
a good time, but Bob took a familiar detour 
to evade the coterie. 

“ I’m a business man now,” he said with 
a smile. “ Got to keep up my dignity till 
I’m independent.” 

Bent on a short cut homewards, he turned 
down a mud road not' much used. It was lined 
with brush and trees. 

Suddenly Bob half paused at a snap and a 
flare. Someone struck a match. It was a boy 
about his own age, some twenty feet away. He 
was a stranger to Bob, and he was lighting a cigar- 
ette, shielding himself from the wind against a tree. 

Every time he puffed, the match flared up and 
Bob got an interesting view of his features and 
attire. 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 37 

He was a “loud” boy, from his natty derby, 
conspicuous tie and tailor cut big check suit down 
to his glossy patent leathers. 

His face was not exactly a bad one, but it bore 
a certain expression of shrewdness and age that 
proclaimed the city boy of advanced ideas. 

In his hand he had a small satchel. Bob had 
no excuse to linger. He walked on unnoticed 
by the stranger, and wondering who he was. 

A broken fence blocked the road half-cut 
through. This inclosed what was known as 
Parker's Pasture. 

The spot was an eighty-acre patch, mostly 
barren, but where in verdure holding high, scrawny 
nettle bushes. 

A few stray cattle occasionally browsed about 
the place, but the ground was broken and roll- 
ing, and the village boys did not much frequent 
it. 

About its center was the ruins of what looked 
like a well shelter. It was not so, in fact — at 
least not a water well. 

Pleasantville had on one occasion had its oil 
excitement. Some speculators had <c prospected,” 


38 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

and had induced old Adam Parker to invest fif- 
teen hundred dollars in their services as expert 
drillers. 

They had bored a big hole in the ground, col- 
lected their fees promptly, and one night de- 
camped. 

All old Parker had to show for his investment 
was a dry deep hole. He was put to further ex- 
pense by the town authorities. They compelled 
him to erect the board barrier around the well to 
prevent stray cattle or careless humanity from 
falling in. 

Bob climbed over the four-rail fence, stopped 
abruptly, looked back and listened. 

He heard two sharp whistles from two different 
points of the compass. 

Then there was a shout, and with a good deal 
of astonishment he noted a figure come flying 
down the road he had just traversed. 

As it approached at cyclone speed, Bob recog- 
nized the strange boy he had observed lighting the 
cigarette. 

The youth forged ahead like an expert runner. 
Bob was about to shout a warning to him, for it 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 39 

looked as though he would run directly into the 
fence. 

Five feet away from it, however, the runner 
lifted from the ground as though set on springs. 

His body described a magnificent semicircle. 
He cleared the fence with ease, and landed 
solidly. 

Never pausing, the stranger continued his dash 
on the other side, rustled in among the woods 
and dimly vanished. 

Bob caught his breath in an admiring glow. 

“ That was clever, ” he applauded. “ Hellq 
in trouble ? ” 

Just then Bob heard a distant but quickly 
suppressed cry. It was one of suddenness and 
pain. 

He ran forward on the course just taken by 
the strange boy, a broken track in the dry woods 
guiding him. 

“ What's up ? ” he questioned, checking him- 
self just in time to prevent tumbling over a half- 
prostrate form. 

“ Eh ? Who are you ” — began the stranger, 
and sat up with a quiver of agitation as there was 


40 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


some more whistling near by. “A boy ? ” he 
added, trying to make out Bob more closely. 

He panted as he spoke, and one hand was 
pressed on a knee as if he was in intense pain there. 

“ Hurt ? ” asked Bob. 

“ No — Yes — don’t mind that. Say, will you 
do something for me ? ” 

“ Yes, indeed. ” 

“Are you square?” hurried on the stranger. 
“ Don’t wait ! hurry — ” 

He bent his ear excitedly. The echo of gruff 
• voices reached them. 

“ Hurry ? What for ? ” asked Bob. 

“ Run — don’t stay here ! Take this.” 

The speaker lifted from the ground the little 
satchel Bob had seen before. 

He pressed it up into Bob’s hand. 

“ What ’s this ? ” began Bob. 

“ Nothing to hurt you — or anybody ^lse. It’s 
mine. Can you keep a promise ? ” 

“ I sometimes try to,” observed Bob dryly. 

“ Do It now. I want you to promise you ’ll run 
with that for your life.” 

“ Why—” 


THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER , 41 

<c Hear that ? ” cried the boy in a frantic way, as 
the voices sounded still nearer. Two men — 
dangerous men. Run — with the satchel ! ” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ Anywhere — only hide it, destroy it ! ” 

“ What ! ” 

“Yes — burn it up, sink it, only get rid of it! 
They ’re coming ! Don ’t wait an instant now 
Remember your promise — destroy it ! ” 

The speaker acted so frenzied that Bob caught 
the infection of his urgency. 

He darted across the open space. He was 
thinking all kinds of thoughts about the mysteri- 
ous episode of the moment, when he came to a 
halt. 

He was just beside the old well. Bob backed 
to its protecting timbers. Coming towards him 
along two sides of a focussing angle, were two men. 

“ There he is ! ” panted one hurried voice. 

“ Hey ! Wait ! ” shouted the other to Bob. 

<c Somebody after that boy,” reflected the 
young printer. cc Well, they won’t hurt me.” 

Then he recalled his tacit promise about the 
satchel. 


42 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ Are they after that ? ” murmured Bob. 
“The stranger said get rid of it.” 

The two men arrived at the well at the same 
moment. They made an eager pounce towards 
Bob. 

The latter put one hand behind him, the hand 
that held the little satchel. 

“ He said burn it, destroy it, sink it,” reflected 
Bob hurriedly. “ I promised — so — ” 

Bob had thrust his hand way back between the 
timbers. He was familiar with what yawned 
below. 

“ Here goes ! ” he said. 

He unclasped his fingers and let the satchel 
drop down the three hundred feet hole in the mid- 
dle of Parker's Pasture. 


CHAPTER V 


A TRICK OF THE ENEMY 

One of the men grabbed Bob and pulled him 
away from the well. The other also grasped the 
youth, and it was well that Bob had disposed of the 
satchel. Had he not done so they would certainly 
have discovered it as they hustled him about. 

“ Give up that — ” 

“ Hold on! it isn’t him! Get along out of 
here, you ! ” 

“ All right,” said Bob accommodatingly, and 
following the impetus of a disappointed shove he 
started away from the spot. 

“ He is n’t the same build — some fellow belong- 
ing here, ” Bob heard one of the men say. 

“ Where did the other disappear to so suddenly, 
then ? ” 

Bob felt he had no further business there. His 

presence might complicate the situation. 

43 


44 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


He went home, and Darry and the whole 
family were so full of the business incidents of the 
day, that the memory of the strange boy and the 
mysterious satchel drifted somewhat out of his 
mind. 

Bob recalled it the next morning, however, 
as he started for work. He did not take his 
regular course to the office. Some impulse of in- 
terest made him go by way of Parker’s Pasture. 

When he came to the well, he cast a curious 
glance at the old framework. 

“ The satchel is sunk right enough,” said Bob, 
viewing the broad open mouth of the hole. 
“ They say it is three hundred feet down, and 
half full of water.” 

Bob located the patch of weeds where he had 
been given the commission by the strange boy. 

The broken, crushed nettle bushes showed 
where he and the other had penetrated this min- 
iature jungle. 

“ Hello ! ” ejaculated Bob, coming to a halt 
just at the spot where the strange youth had ac- 
costed him the night previous. 

Bob had fancied that the latter had stumbled 


A TRICK OF THE ENEMY 45 

and fallen while running and hurt himself, judging 
from his tone and manner. 

Now he was enlightened as to how badly. An 
old scythe lay on the ground where the stranger 
had fallen. Its blade was red in spots, and so 
was the ground about it. 

“ He was a plucky one,” commented Bob. 
“ He must have run into the scythe, full tilt. 
It tripped him, and must have cut him terribly. 
He couldn’t run any further, but he didn’t let 
on to me. Those men were after him, of course. 
They wanted that satchel. He was bound they 
shouldn’t have it. Did they find him finally, I 
wonder ? ” 

Bob did not believe so, after a little investigation. 
He traced a break in the weeds clear to the fence. 

It seemed to have been made by one person, 
and that person the strange boy escaping from 
the field, for telltale splotches of red stained the 
bushes. 

Bob lost the trail where the road began. 
There was nothing further to learn, but he was 
curious to know what had finally become of the 
wounded youth. 


46 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Why,” he ruminated, as he proceeded on his 
way to the office, “ would n’t this make quite a 
sensation for a newspaper! If the old Eagle had 
it they ’d get out a double extra : ‘ The Mystery 
of Parker’s Pasture! The Telltale Blood 
Stains,’ etcetera , etcetera . Hemp Carson would 
work in some old fake cuts and set the town wild. 
I wish we were running a newspaper ! ” sighed 
the imaginative young typo longingly. “ Maybe 
we will, some day.” 

Bob got to the office and opened windows and 
doors, letting in the bright sunshine and fresh 
balmy air. 

He put the Novelty Works job on the press 
in a jiffy, and started at work. 

The splendid little machine moved smoothly 
and true, its even, musical click being inspiring 
to the ears of its ardent operator. 

“ It works like a charm,” commented the 
satisfied Bob. “ That printing stands out like 
copperplate on marble.” 

Bob had run off some five hundred sheets, 
when there was a visitor. 

Baker Mills, porter at the local hotel, obtruded 


A TRICK OF THE ENEMY 


4 7 


his pleasant face beyond the doorway and then 
walked to a stool. 

“ Thought Td drop in,” he observed. 

“ Good,” commented Bob, spreading some 
sheets out to dry. 

“ Surprised ! Got a regular print shop here ! ” 

“ Sure,” nodded Bob proudly. 

Mr. Baker Mills never said much. He had 
not had an altogether pleasant life before fate had 
kindly thrown him in the way of Bart Stirling. 

That philanthropic and bustling young express 
agent had taken a liking to the harmless, persecuted 
outcast. He had righted the wrongs of Baker 
Mills, and the ex-roustabout had never forgotten it. 

With his quiet, unobtrusive ways he was a 
general favorite at the hotel. He got many a 
generous cc tip ” from traveling men, and was 
saving money. 

“ All ready for business ? ” inquired Mills, 
after watching Bob’s maneuvers for a spell. 

“ You bet ! ” 

“ Taking orders ? ” 

“ Fast as they come in.” 

“ I’ve got one,” announced Mills. 


48 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Good for you ! ” cried the delighted Bob. 

“ Got two,” 

“ Well, now, you 're a friend, Mr. Mills ! ” 

“ I ought to be. Bart Stirling and you fellows 
just about made me. The hotel wants five hun- 
dred c Rules and Regulations’ printed on card- 
board.” 

“ Is that the copy ? ” asked Bob. 

“ Yes,” said Mills, tendering an old card. 

“ We ’ll improve on it. What ’s the other ? ” 
“ Traveling man wants two hundred postal 
cards printed, with an announcement that he 
is on the road and will call on certain customers 
on certain dates. Here ’s what he has written. 
You leave a blank for the date.” 

“ I see,” said Bob. “ Mr. Mills, you ’re just 
famous, bringing us in this work ! ” 

“ I’ll pick up more.” 

“ There will be a commission — ” 

“•Not for me — not from Haven Brothers ! ” 
declared Mills definitely. “ Thought maybe I 
might meet Bart Stirling here. He ’s in town.” 

“ Is that so ? I had not heard of it. If he is, 
though, he ’ll be sure to drop in here. You ’ll ex- 


A TRICK OF THE ENEMY 


49 


cuse me, but the ink ’s just right, and I’ve got a 
hurry job on the press,” explained Bob, turning 
to the press again. 

“ You keep right on, I love to watch you,” 
said Mills. “ Wish I was a printer myself.” 

Bob made the sheets fly. He laughed, chatted 
and whistled, and Baker Mills watched him in his 
peaceful happy way. 

Darry came bustling in, his hat pushed back on 
forehead, pencil and paper in hand. He hailed 
their visitor with a hearty welcome and went 
straight to the office desk. 

“ Got a chance to estimate on a lawyer’s brief, 
Bob,” he announced. “ Sixteen pages, straight 
matter. Think of it ! What are these ? ” 

“ Two jobs Mr. Mills brought in.” 

“ Mr. Mills is a jewel ! ” cried Darry. “ Bob, 
we ’re growing like a rolling snowball.” 

“ Yes, have to hire help if this keeps on ! ” 
chuckled the happy Bob. 

Darry went over to the table where the freshly 
printed circulars were drying. He picked up one, 
and held it at a distance with the eye of a con- 


noisseur. 


50 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“Neat, perfect,” he complimented. “The 
press is all they guaranteed it. That tasteful dis- 
play is a stroke of genius, Bob. But — Hold on! ” 
Of a sudden Darry shouted out the words. 
Bob bounded back as startled as if he had said the 
shop was on fire. 

Darry was staring closer at the circular in a dis- 
mayed way. 

“ Why, what’s the matter, Darry? ” demanded 
the astonished Bob. 

Darry cast a quick glance at the printed circu- 
lars as though estimating their number. 

“ Six hundred sheets spoiled ! ” he announced. 
“ What’s the meaning of this, Bob ? Stop the 

I ” 

press ! 


CHAPTER VI 


“ THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN ” 

Bob stopped the press promptly. He stood 
staring in profound wonder at his brother. 

“ Six hundred sheets spoiled ! ” he repeated 
incredulously — “ what are you talking about, 
Darry ? ” 

“ Why, look for yourself, ” responded Darry. 
“ We mustn’t be careless, Bob.” 

“ Careless ! ” flared up the young foreman. 
“ Did anybody ever see a neater job ? ” 

“The presswork is all right, but the blun- 
ders — ” 

Bob Haven was quickly excited. He made a 
dash at the composing stone and snatched up the 
proof he had taken the night previous of the job 
on the press. 

“ Blunders ! ” he exclained. “ Can’t afford them 
in this office ! We are n’t that kind around here, 
51 


52 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


and don’t make them. If that is n’t a clean proof, 
please show me what is ! ” 

Bob in righteous indignation rushed the proof 
into his brother’s hand. Darry ran it over with 
his eyes. They began to widen in perplexed 
amazement and mystification. 

“ Here’s a mystery ! ” he exclaimed. “ The 
proof is certainly all right, but the printed cir- 
cular — ” 

Darry consulted this again. 

“Listen, Bob. Second line down : ‘We wish 
to fleece our customers.’ Should be 'please' 
End of second paragraph, ‘We will give you sat- 
isfaction nit ' Should read ‘ net.' Fifth line from 
the bottom: ‘ You will sell these goods at loss' 
Should read ‘ cost' " 

Bob took a look and fell back against the table, 
his face a void of consternation. 

Baker Mills approached in his noiseless in- 
offensive way. He glanced quickly over Darry ’s 
shoulder. 

“ Easy, '’ he observed. 

“What’s easy? ” gulped the stricken Bob. 

“ Someone has queered you. ” 


“THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN ” 53 

“Eh? ” 

“Yes. You had it right, you say. Well, 
someone has fixed it wrong.’* 

“ Why, of course, ” murmured Darry, growing 
thoughtful — “ what else ? ” 

“ Who could ? — How could they ? ” challenged 
Bob incoherently, and glaring wildly about the 
office. 

Baker Mills shook his head slowly and 
sighed. 

“ Wicked world,” he said. “ Enemies are bad 
things. I know, for I had them once.” 

“ Bob ! ” spoke Darry explosively, “ you don’t 
suppose — ** 

“ What ? ” demanded Bob, his eyes roving over 
the doors and windows of their stronghold specu- 
latively. 

“ The job was all right when you proved it? ** 
“ Does n’t that proof show it ? ” 

“ Who has been in here since ? ” 

“ Not a soul except ourselves. ” 

“ Then the fact is palpable : someone sneaked 
in last night and made those errors. ” 

“ How could they ? ” 


54 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ How did the Eagle people get on to the 
amount of our bid ? ” 

“ That ’s so ! ” cried Bob with snapping eyes. 
“ Whoever changed that form knew all about type- 
setting, too. Say, if I thought this was another 
of Hemp Carson’s mean tricks — ” 

“ I should n’t wonder if you had hit the nail on 
the head, Bob,” announced a bright pleasant voice 
at the open doorway. 

“ Bart ! ” cried Darry, springing forward and 
clasping the hand of his loyal young friend. 

Baker Mills’s face lit up with sunshine. He 
shook Bart Stirling’s hand as if he was proud of 
him. Then he obliterated himself on the remotest 
corner stool, but his eyes followed his young 
friend like those of some devoted animal. 

“ Now then, let us have the rights of this thing, 
fellows,” suggested Bart in his brisk, sensible way. 

The incident of the changed types was gone 
over in detail for Bart Stirling’s benefit. 

“ I think there is no doubt of it,” he said 
readily, “ this is the work of some rival. I 
called here last night myself, but everything was 
locked up tight.” 


“THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN” 55 

“ Did you see anybody hanging around ? ” 
questioned Bob eagerly. 

“ I did — peering around the corner there was 
a man. I hailed him, but he ran. I thought at 
the time he resembled that Eagle fellow, Carson, 
but he was too quick for me.” 

“ Well, we must be on our guard after this,” 
said Darry seriously. 

“ How did he get in ? That ’s the question 
that puzzles me/’ muttered Bob. 

He examined all the doors and windows. 
Then he went upstairs. In a few minutes he 
came downstairs again, a satisfied but angry 
expression on his face. 

“ It was Hemp Carson, and nobody else,” he 
declared. 

“ How do you know ? ” questioned Darry. 

“ Who else would be that mean ? ” challenged 
Bob. “ He got in at the big loft door, lifting the 
hook from the staple with a pencil.” 

“ How do you know that ? ” 

“ I found the pencil. It ’s one of the kind the 
Eagle had its name stamped on, and gave away 
for a souvenir. It’s made of bright yellow 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


56 

wood. This one is daubed with printing ink. 
What ’s more convincing is a string of tobacco 
that dropped from the pocket of the mean thief 
when he stooped to get through the door- 
way/’ 

“ Quite a detective, Bob ! ” laughed Bart. 
“Well, all you can do is to nail up tight and 
keep a close watch.” 

Bob was wrathful, and went about repairing 
the damage done with lowering brows and direful 
mutterings of vengeance. 

Darry, however, soon forgot his troubles listen- 
ing to Bart’s animated recital of his new business 
career in the city. 

The young express agent modestly described 
the importance and dignity of his position as 
assistant manager of an express office at Rock- 
port. He told of the friendly kindness of the 
officials of the company, who had taken a mani- 
fest interest in him. 

“Why ! you fellows are making a regular do- 
nation party of your morning call,” declared 
Darry gaily, as Bart handed over a written sheet. 
It was the copy for a letter ordered by some 


“THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN ” 5; 

office acquaintances of his who were going into a 
little mail order business as a side line. 

“ And still they come ! ” pronounced Bart 
in an encouraging undertone, as a man appeared 
at the door. 

“ This the printing office ? ” queried the new 
visitor. 

“ It is,” announced Darry, advancing with his 
best business air. “ What can we do for you ? ” 

Baker Mills uttered a sort of a growl and 
arose. He had recognized the visitor as the 
man of all work of Colonel Jeptha Harrington. 
Bart recognized him, too, and bowed slightly. 

“ Here's a job for Mrs. Harrington,” said the 
man, showing a sheet of pink-scented note paper. 
“ She wants fifty invitations to a musicale 
printed.” 

“ I see,” said Darry examining the copy. 
“ This is the matter, is it ? ” 

“ She wrote that, and said to use the finest 
paper. It must be just so, and ready for Satur- 
day morning. Never mind the expense — have it 
right.” 

“ It will be right and ready on time,” promised 


58 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Darry. “ Hold on, — don’t you want the 

figures ? ” 

“Guess not — she didn’t say anything about 
that,” answered the man carelessly. “ When 
Mrs. Harrington wants a thing money don’t cut 
no figure, you know.” 

“ Well, this is a rush,” cried Darry in a pleased 
way, as the man went off. “ Mr. Foreman, are 
you going to be able to handle all these fresh 
orders ? ” He appealed to his brother with a 
grin. 

“ Don ’t worry about that,” answered Bob. 
“ Only — don’t say much to me just now, 
though,” he continued warningly. “ I ’ll get into 
a fight with everybody soon, if I don ’t get that 
sneak, Hemp Carson, out of my mind.” 

“ You let Hemp Carson alone,” advised Bart. 
“He’ll soon come to the end of his rope. 
What, going, Mr. Mills ? ” 

Baker Mills had started for the door in a dis- 
turbed way. 

“Guess I’d better,” he said. “I’m like Bob 
— riled up.” 

“Why, what at? ” asked Darry in surprise. 


“ THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN” 59 

“ Harrington. Maybe Im sensitive, but I 
can't even run up against that name without a 
shiver. You know your business, boys, but the 
less you have to do with the Harringtons, root 
and branch, the wiser and richer you will be in 
the end." 

“ He is about right, I guess," said Bart, glanc- 
ing thoughtfully after his friend. “ Colonel 
Harrington very nearly destroyed that man's life. 
You know Mrs. Harrington is a whimsical, arro- 
gant lady, with very little respect for the rights of 
others." 

“ Yes, I know," answered Darry. “ I remem- 
ber how she ordered some expensive lace work 
from your mother, claimed it was imperfect, but 
all the same gave it to a relative for a wedding 
present, and never paid for it. But we can't afford 
to turn her down, Bart. Business is business 
and she elects to be a customer. The job is n’t 
much anyhow, and if I have to put profit down 
as experience it's a cheap experiment." 

“ Haven Brothers in ? " 

There was another caller. Even Bob took an 
interest in this newcomer. All three recognized 


6o 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


the latest visitor, and each wondered what brought 
him to the printing office. 

“ Good morning Mr. Chase,” said Darry 
politely, and Bob and Bart bowed also. 

The visitor was a young man about twenty-five 
years old. He was recognized as the dude of 
Pleasantville, rather effeminate and trivial in his 
manners, but there was nothing of the rowdy 
about him. 

About six months previous he had come from 
Rockport, and had started the Society Journal. 

It was generally understood that the Harring- 
ton social set had encouraged him. Judging 
from the fulsome descriptions of the colonel's 
sumptuous home and Mrs. Harrington’s imported 
party toilettes, this seemed true at the outset. 

The paper had no general circulation, however. 
Neither Bart nor the Havens knew much about 
its course or prospects since the initial number 
had blazoned forth the greatness of the mighty 
leaders in local “ sassiety.” 

As Bart shrewdly looked Mr. Chase over just 
now, he intuitively divined that the dude was in 
some kind of distress. 


“ THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN ” 61 

The society editor looked pale and worried. 
He wore a turned collar, and there was a cer- 
tain threadbare aspect to his elegantly-fitting suit. 

“ I — that is — ” spoke Augustus Chase in a 
hesitating and embarrassed way. “ Heard you 
had started in the printing business. Quite a fine 
plant, capital plant, he observed, gazing critically 
about the place through his monocle. 

Mr. Chase’s soul was not in his words, how- 
ever. It was plain to see he had something else 
on his mind. 

“ Have a chair, ” suggested Darry kindly. 

“ No — er, that is, not this time. Ah — er, gen- 
tlemen, perhaps I had better waste no time : I 
have come on business. ” 

“ Thank you,” said Darry. 

c( I am in — that is, yes, I am in trouble, ” con- 
tinued Mr. Chase, gazing stonily at nothingness. 
“ In a confidential way, I have come to you, 
brothers of the craft, as you might say, to ask a 
favor — k great favor.” 

“ Name it, Mr. Chase,” said Darry frankly, 
“ and if it lies in our power you certainly shall be 
accommodated.” 


62 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


A slight tremor crossed the face of the society 
editor. It made the observing Bart think of a 
person who had met with some hard knocks, and 
was touched at coming across a variation in the 
way of kind and courteous treatment. 

“ My paper, ” and Mr. Chase swallowed a 
difficult lump in his throat, “ is, I may as well con- 
fess it, in difficulties. The fact is, the Eagle peo- 
ple don’t like me.” 

“ Do they like anyone that is trying to earn 
an honest living ? ” flared out the perturbed Bob. 

“ Easy, Bob,” said Darry gently, in an under- 
tone. “We understand the situation, Mr. Chase,” 
he continued, to the society editor. 

“ They have bribed my compositor to leave 
me with the paper half set up,” went on IJdr. v - 
Chase. “ They have — er, bought up his account, 
and threaten to sue me.” 

“ That’s them ! ” muttered Bob — “ sharks ! 
vampires ! ” 

“ My sentiments,” nodded Mr. Chase approv- 
ingly. “ They are rude, coarse people, unable to 
appreciate refinement or delicacy of feeling. I 
may not be a good business man, but I am a 


“THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN ” 63 

gentleman, I hope, and I could not consent 
to meet them or truckle to them. If I can 
get out this week’s issue, I can collect on some 
ads. and liquidate the — the — er — more pressing 
claims, and possibly survive.” 

“ And you want our help ? ” asked Darry in 
an encouraging tone. 

“ I do. If I could get two columns of fresh 
matter set up, I can fill in with electros and get 
out a half-presentable issue,” explained Mr. 
Chase. “ Could you — er — that is, would you 
set them up for me ? ” 

Darry hesitated a moment thoughtfully, then 
he said : 

cc I am sorry, Mr. Chase, but the body type of 
your paper is bourgeois ? ” 

The society editor nodded an assent. 

“We have nothing closer to it than brevier, 
and not a full font of that.” 

cc I see,” said Mr. Chase, bending his head to 
conceal his emotions of disappointment ana cha- 
grin, and he turned to depart. 

Quick-witted Bob read the situation in a flash. 
He discerned readily that Mr. Chase believed 


64 THE BOY PUBLISHERS 

they were politely turning him down on a subter- 
fuge. 

“ Hold on ! ” he cried impulsively, coming up 
to Chase. “ We haven’t the type, just as we 
say. If we had, you would be welcome to it. 
You have, have n’t you ? ” 

“ Why, certainly, up at my office. But I 
can’t find a compositor.” 

“ I’m your man, announced Bob. You get 
your copy all ready, and I’ll be on hand at half- 
past six this evening to rush her through.” 

“ You — you ’ll — ” 

Mr. Chase could speak only in a muffled tone. 

“We’ll have a lark, disappointing that old 
vulture, Jasper Mackey, proprietor of the Eagle , 
and his boon coyote, Hemp Carson ! ” announced 
Bob. “ Make your mind easy, Mr. Chase. You 
get your end ready. I’ll be on deck with my 
parcel of the goods ! ” 

Augustus Chase always resented familiarity, but 
a warm flush suffused his face at this evidence 
of whole-heartedness. 

“ Haven Brothers,” he said in a choking tone, 
“you are just what people told me I’d find you. 


“THE SOUL OF A GENTLEMAN” 65 

Thank you — thank you. Excuse, me, I can t 
say any more, I — I — ” 

Darry pretended to busy himself at some 
papers to relieve Chase of his manifest embarrass- 
ment and emotion. 

“ I’ll pay you, of course — pay you well,” 
resumed the society editor. “ That is, after the 
paper is out. As security, I wish to tender this — ” 

u Hold on ! shouted Bob Haven stormily — 
“ none of that ! ” 

He was fairly dramatic, as, with a challenging 
gesture he made Augustus Chase withdraw his 
hand extended to remove from his frayed, well- 
brushed necktie a small diamond pin nestling there. 

“ Thirty days is our rule,” declared Bob, “ and 
if you’ll call the job just fun, to give those Eagle 
people a disappointment, it ’s a go ! ” 

Mr. Augustus Chase gave Bob one look. He 
tried to speak, and failed. He went to the door, 
turned, and faltered. 

Then, straightening up erect and proud, though 
entirely broken-spirited, he lifted his hat with the 
remark : 


“ Sir, you have the soul of a gentleman ! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


COLLECTING A BILL 

“Give me that bill, Darry Haven !” 

“ Steady, Bob.” 

“ I’ll show you how to collect it. What ! let 
that mean Old Croesus beat us out of our just 
dues ? Hand it over, and if I don’t show up 
with the money inside of an hour, I’ll eat my 
hat ! ” 

“ Some day you will really have to perform that 
rare gastronomic feat, Bob, if you keep on putting 
it up as forfeit on all occasions,” said Darry with 
a laugh. 

<c Never mind ! ” flared up Bob. 

“ I shan’t — and don’t you, I’ll attend to Mrs. 
Colonel Harrington’s bill.” 

Bob Haven was thrashing around the office in 
his usual furious style when unduly excited. 

Darry was quite as much perturbed, but, as the 
66 


COLLECTING A BILL 


67 

balance wheel of the juvenile firm, he felt it in- 
cumbent on him to maintain a clear head and 
steady nerves. 

The point at issue was that most trouble- 
some element in Pleasantville social life : Mrs. 
Colonel Harrington. Baker Mills had predicted 
trouble the day they had taken the society 
job for that arrogant leader of the exclusive 
set. 

Darry, however, had proceeded to carry out in- 
structions. He had sent to the city to get just the 
shade and texture of paper required. The envel- 
opes matched perfectly. A list had been supplied 
with the copy, and Darry had got Bart Stirling’s 
sister, Bertha, to address the invitations in a neat, 
pretty hand. 

Certainly the job was perfection. Haven 
Brothers were proud of it. Mrs. Colonel Har- 
rington was a power in Pleasantville, and could in- 
fluence a good deal of work their way if so dis- 
posed. They hoped for the best. 

They wrapped up the job neatly for delivery, 
taking unusual pains to have it look attractive. 
At eleven o’clock Colonel Harrington’s man 


68 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


appeared at the doorway of the little printing 
office. 

“ Say,” he drawled in his slouching way, 
“about that job for Mrs. Harrington.” 

“ What about it ? ” questioned Darry. 

“ Cancel it. ” 

“ Eh ! ” 

“ She ’s changed her mind. ” 

Darry was petrified, and Bob suddenly doubled 
his fist about a handful of type he was distribut- 
ing. 

“ Changed her mind ? ” repeated Darry, in 
surprise. 

“ Yes, told me to tell you she ’d decided to get 
the work done somewhere else.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! ” said Darry softly, but nursing 
his wrath. 

“ This is the work of that Hemp Carson and 
the Eagle vultures again. I’ll bet my hat !’* mut- 
tered Bob. 

The messenger had turned to leave. Darry 
halted him with a sharp hail. 

“ Wait a moment, my man.” 

“ All right,” 


COLLECTING A BILL 


69 

cc The job you speak of was regularly ordered. 
It is completed. We shall insist on delivery. 
Here it is.” 

Something in Darry’s manly business bearing 
made the man ashamed of himself. 

“ Sorry ” he mumbled. “ ’Tain’t my fault, I 
can’t take the bundle.” 

“ Why not ? ” demanded Bob. 

“ She ’d fire me, if I did. She ’s always doing 
these things, and I can’t help it. You ’ll have to 
see her about it.” 

“ I certainly shall,” remarked Darry, with firm- 
ness. 

“ Yes, and you tell her so ! ” shouted the irate 
junior member of the firm after the departing 
messenger. 

“ I will be back shortly. Bob,” said Darry, 
leaving the office with a very determined look on 
his face. 

When he returned Bob noticed that his brother 
had gone home and arrayed himself in his Sun- 
day best. 

Darry was a fine-looking young fellow, and was 
as spick and span in his neat and faultless attire as 


70 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


a person especially prepared for a high-up social 
function. 

“ Must be going to take your pay by breaking 
into society,” suggested Bob sarcastically. 

“ Not at all,” returned Darry quietly. <c I am 
simply going to collect that bill.” 

“ With all those fal-lals ? Say, Darry, you 
don’t know your subject. Everybody is just 
common dirt to Mrs. Colonel Harrington, unless 
they’ve got a big lot of money. She’ll wither 
you with her insolence, and you ’ll have your 
dress-up for nothing.” 

“ Oh, well. I’ll show her I can act the gentlemen, 
at least,” said Darry. 

“ Wish I had the handling of the matter. He 
won’t get the money,” predicted the junior partner 
as his brother left the office. 

Darry went straight to the Harrington mansion. 
He tendered a neat card bearing his name to the 
servant at the door. 

That supercilious individual regarded Darry 
with a critical eye ; was evidently impressed with 
the caller’s make-up, and invited him into the 
vestibule. 


COLLECTING A BILL 71 

In about two minutes the servant returned. 

cc Mrs. Harrington is engaged,” he stated icily. 

“ Did you give her my card ? ” demanded 
Darry. 

“ Oh, yes.” 

“ Then go back with it, and present this at the 
same time,” and Darry handed the man the bill 
for the printing. 

The servant hesitated. 

“ You need not delay,” advised Darry in a reso- 
lute tone, “ I shall not leave this house until Mrs. 
Harrington has seen that bill.” 

The servant departed with evident reluctance. 
He soon returned, and handed back to Darry 
both card and bill. 

“ Well ? ” demanded Darry. 

“ Mrs. Harrington does not know you.” 

“ She knows me in a business way,” persisted 
Darry. 

“ She says she owes no such bill, and for you 
to go away.” 

“ Will you take another message to her ? ” 

“ Mrs. Harrington would decline to receive it. 
Excuse me, sir, but the bell is calling me.” 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


72 

Darry was deftly ushered out to the porch. 
Rather disconcerted, he acknowledged defeat, for 
he did not wish to make a fight of it. 

Bob grinned all over his face when Darry re- 
turned to the office, crestfallen. 

“ What are you going to do about it now?” 
demanded Bob. 

“ I shall see Mr. Hutchinson, the lawyer.” 

“ And pay fifty per cent for collecting that bill ! ” 

“ That is one of the exigencies of business.” 

“ It needn’t be of yours,” declared Bob. 
“ We can’t afford such luxuries, just starting in. 
I’ll collect that bill for twenty-five per cent, indi- 
vidually.” 

Darry looked his brother over inquisitively, 
but Bob’s face was inscrutable. Darry was nettled 
at his treatment. 

“ And you need n’t lend me your dress suit to 
make an impression in ! ” observed Bob with a sly 
chuckle. cc I don’t need it in my business.” 

“ Think you can get the money, do you ? ” 

“ Sure.” 

“ Well, try it ! ” surrendered Darry desperately, 
throwing the bill on the desk. 


COLLECTING A BILL 


73 

Bob picked the bill up, glanced it over, tore it 
up and made out a new one. 

“ Hold on ! ” challenged Darry. 

I’m running things now,” observed Bob 
coolly. 

He did not mind a bit that his inky fingers 
daubed the bill. He thrust it carelessly into the 
grimed pocket of his apron. 

His arms up to his elbows were splotched here 
and there with the marks of his toil. Bob calmly 
put on a few more splatters. 

cc Bob, what are you up to? ” demanded Darry 
with manifest uneasiness. 

“ HI soon be up to the Harrington’s/’ retorted 
Bob gaily. “ So long ! ” 

His paper cap jauntily set on the back of his 
head, a typical careless printer on a rush errand, 
Bob sallied forth, the musicale job under his arm. 

When he reached the Harrington mansion he 
dallied at the gate, making a reconnoisance of the 
place. 

Through the open front windows of the draw- 
ing-room the sounds of singing and piano playing 
echoed in the air. 


74 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Bob waited till a servant in the hall seemed to 
go to some other part of the house. 

He gave his face an extra smudge with his inky 
fingers, and stole up the steps and to the open 
doorway. 

Bob glided past the vestibule and a few yards 
down the softly-carpeted hall. 

He glanced past some draperies. Half a dozen 
ladies were just leaving the piano. They had 
evidently been practicing for the musical. 

Mrs. Colonel Harrington was conspicious 
among the group. Bob knew her by sight. He 
singled her out and crossed the threshold. 

One of the ladies gave a little scream at the 
sudden intrusion, which instantly checked the 
lively chatter going on. 

All drew back with wondering glances except 
Mrs. Harrington. As the hostess, she swept 
forward with queenly dignity and astonishment. 

“ Boy, how dare you ! ” she cried. 

“That’s all right,” said Bob lightly. “You 
are Mrs. Harrington ? I came to deliver the in- 
vitations you ordered from Haven Brothers. 
There they are, ma’am, and here’s the bill.” 



’’there you are, ma’am, and here’s the bill.” — Page 74 





















. 


























































COLLECTING A BILL 


7 5 


Mrs. Colonel Harrington turned as red as a 
beet. She trembled with inward rage. She 
stamped her foot. 

“ Go — at once ! ” she ordered, pointing majes- 
tically to the door. “ Do you hear me — at 
once ! ” 

“ No, ma’am,” said Bob, “ not till I get the 
money. I’ve got to get it.” 

He took off his cap and sat upon a satin-lined 
ornamental chair. 

The colonel’s wife quivered as his grimed 
work apron switched recklessly across its cream- 
puffed arms. 

“ Boy,” she gasped, “ who let you in ? Go, do 
you hear me ? ” 

Bob got up, but he electrified his hostess 
afresh as he rubbed his besmirched elbow against 
a fragile lovely curtain. 

“ I’ll stand up,” he said, diffusing stupidity 
and perversity into tones and bearing. “ The 
job was ordered all right and done all right. If 
we don’t get our money, we ’ll advertise the facts 
by circulars and offer to sell the invitations as 
souvenirs.” 


76 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Did you ever ! ” exclaimed one of Mrs. 
Harrington’s bosom friends. 

“ Oh, this is too much ! ” panted Mrs. Colonel 
Harrington herself. “Such an affront! I’ll — 
I’ll send the money.” 

“No, ma’am,” said Bob solemnly — “spot 
cash are our terms.” 

“ I won’t — ring for Samuels ! Oh, such inso- 
lence ! In my own house — oh ! oh ! 

Mrs. Harrington fell over on a sofa in a hys- 
terical fit. The bell rang for Samuels. 

The doughty representative of Haven Brothers 
retired as he heard hurried footsteps. It was 
only to cross the hall, however, and enter the 
sumptuous library. 

He could see the man servant, a maid and 
Colonel Harrington himself in turn hasten into 
the drawing-room. 

He could catch sounds like the confused cack- 
ling of a lot of hens, and the subdued cries of the 
affronted lady of the house. 

Then the servant spied Bob, slid into the 
drawing-room, and imparted some information to 
the colonel. 


COLLECTING A BILL 


77 


The big, self-important magnate of Pleasant- 
ville came storming into the library. 

Bob had seated himself in a luxurious arm- 
chair. Colonel Harrington shot one glance at 
him, wrathful and dangerous. 

“ Are you the boy — ” he began loudly. 

“ Haven Brothers — bill must be paid,” ob- 
served Bob sententiously. 

“You young scoundrel !” roared the colonel. 
“ What do you mean, intruding here and scaring 
my wife half to death ? ” 

“ She scared us half to death because we 
feared we would n’t get our money,” declared 
Bob. 

“ You never will ! ” 

“ Then I’ll stick.” 

Bob had stood up. He sat down again. 

“ This is intolerable ! ” panted the colonel. 
“ I’ll — I’ll throw you out ! ” 

“ You won’t — without a row,” observed Bob 
coolly. “You’re big, but it will be work. You 
pay my bill. Shame on you, trying to cheat 
hard-working people out of their money ! ” 
Colonel Harrington was a coward, physically 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


78 

and morally. He recognized that he was dealing 
with no ordinary proposition. 

“ There ’s a bad-debt collection agency at 
Rockport,” went on Bob, undaunted. “ If this 
bill is n’t paid at once, we will hire its yellow 
wagon to stop in front of your door every day 
for an hour until it is.” 

“ You young ruffian ! ” choked out the colonel. 
“Not so loud. Oh, this common rabble ! * he 
groaned, as he realized that his wife’s guests 
could hear every word. “ Give me your bill. 
How is this ? It was only three dollars and fifty 
cents.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Harrington did know Haven 
Brothers enough to glance it over ? ” said Bob. 
“ Well, it ’s five dollars now — one dollar and fifty 
cents for my time wasted in calling for it, and I 
won’t rebate it one cent.” 

“ Receipt it ! ” snapped the colonel savagely. 

“ Five dollars,” demanded Bob, penciling the 
firm’s name, but keeping tight hold of the receipt. 
“ Thank you,” he added in mock politeness as a 
five-dollar bill was passed to him. 

Bob walked to the door and down the hall. 


COLLECTING A BILL 79 

Colonel Harrington was boiling over with pent- 
up rage. 

He caught a titter from the interested group 
in the drawing-room. 

“ Samuels ! ” he roared to the servant, tidying 
up the sofa which Mrs. Harrington had dis- 
ordered. 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ Kick that young scoundrel off the premises.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Bob heard the words. He halted like a statue. 

“ Try it,” he challenged, facing squarely about. 

The colonel cringed, and the servant shuffled 
nervously. 

Bob eyed them silently for a moment, walked 
leisurely down the steps, and started along the 
graveled walk with a careless whistle on his lips. 


CHAPTER VIII 

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 

The days moved on pretty smoothly for Ha- 
ven Brothers and their enterprise after the Har- 
rington episode. 

Bob signalized himself and won a friend for 
life in helping out Augustus Chase with his 
Society Journal, 

The tireless young typo stayed up all night 
setting up the two columns of matter for Chase, and 
showed up at the old carpenter shop in the morn- 
ing as bright as a dollar. 

The Novelty Works job was delivered and 
paid for, and highly commended by Mr. Dawes. 

The work brought in by Bart Stirling and 
Baker Mills was sent out on time. Each day 
some small order found its way to the little print- 
ing office. Darry was very hopeful of landing 
one or two large contracts that would give them 
a regular amount of work each month. 

80 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 81 

At the end of the first week the boys proudly 
balanced their ledger, seven dollars and fifty cents 
<c to the good,” as Bob expressed it. 

The second week’s earnings were exactly 
twelve dollars, and the month showed up sixty- 
three dollars and seventy-five cents profit. 

Bob ran his department on a neat, thrifty sys- 
tem. Darry, always on the outside, discovered 
new friends and prospects daily. 

Hemp Carson troubled them no further for the 
present. Nevertheless, the boys kept a close 
lookout for tricks and traps. 

One afternoon Bob had to go to the express 
office for some blank cards shipped from the city. 

He locked the door, but did not close the win- 
dows. There was no need of this precaution 
any longer, he decided. 

Bob gave a whistle, and down the stairs bounded 
Christmas, a canine friend he had picked up a 
year before. 

A man named Lem Wacker had left Pleasant- 
ville in a hurry and under a cloud and he had 
abandoned the dog. Bob discovered the animal 
chained up in a cold, empty barn. He rescued 

F 


82 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


and fed him, and Christmas had developed into a 
faithful watchdog. 

Bob left the intelligent animal on guard with 
every confidence in the vigilance of Christmas, 
and went after the express package. 

He was returning down a street on which the 
hotel sided, when a little incident halted him. Bob 
lingered, curious and interested, for some minutes. 

A side entrance door to the hotel had opened. 
A suit case was dropped smartly on to the pave- 
ment. There followed the steward of the hotel, 
leading or rather hustling a boy about Bob’s own 
age. 

The boy walked with a crutch and limped 
slightly. As he was pushed out upon the stone 
landing of the steps, Bob heard the steward say : 

“ Now, you stay out of here ! ” 

“ Don’t worry, I shall,” answered the boy 
calmly. 

“ Don’t fret, I’ll see that you do ! ” 

“ By the way, though,” observed the ejected 
guest, “ just keep my bill ready, will you ? 
You’ll get your pay all right inside of twenty- 
four hours. ” 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 83 

<c Yah, you dead beat ! ” 

“ That ’s a mistake, my friend. Til prove it 
to you to-morrow. ” 

The steward slammed the door shut and locked 
it. The boy sat down on the steps, viewed his 
suit case with a comical grin, took out a bag 
from his pocket and rolled a cigarette. 

“ Why, it ’s the very fellow ! ” breathed Bob 
excitedly. 

“ With vivid suddenness there recurred to 
Bob’s mind the night he crossed Parker’s Pasture. 

A trifle paler, as though he had gone through 
a fit of sickness, his once ultra-stylish checked 
suit a little more threadbare, this was still the 
strange boy who had given Bob that mysterious 
satchel. 

That article was undoubtedly now rotting away 
three hundred feet down the old well shaft. Bob 
had almost forgotten about it. Now, as the 
youth showed up again, everything was revived 
to his active imagination, and he was immensely 
interested. 

Bob fancied he could correctly read the situa- 
tion presented. The boy had been a guest of the 


84 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


hotel, had become delinquent in his payments, and 
had been evicted. 

The suit case did not look very prosperous. 
Its owner sat puffing at the cigarette in a thought- 
ful, resigned way. Bob could not help it — he 
was the most friendly, humane boy in the world, 
and he went straight up to the desolate owner of 
the suit case. 

“ Hello ! ” hailed Bob. 

The stranger looked up sharply. He scanned 
Bob with a critical glance. 

He nodded silently; Bob observed that he did 
not recognize him as his rush messenger at Park- 
er’s Pasture. 

“In trouble ? ” pressed Bob. 

“ Trouble is n’t in my line, my friend,” ob- 
served the stranger, with a hard laugh. “ I have 
a good motto : ‘ Everything is worth something, 
nothing is worth worrying about.’ ” 

“ I’ve heard that before,” suggested Bob. 

“ Fold it to your heart all the same, it’s a good 
maxim.” 

The stranger continued to puff at his cigarette. 
Bob urged his point. 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 85 

“ Looks as if you had some bother in there ? ” 
he suggested, indicating the hotel. 

“ Oh, yes,” answered the other with an indiffer- 
ent shrug of his shoulders. “ First week parlor 
floor, funds flush. Second week third floor, funds 
weak. Third week garret, funds gone. Fourth 
week — the sidewalk.” He waved his hand across 
it. “ Now — fresh air and the blue sky.” He 
made a dramatic sweep of the horizon. 

“ What are you going to do now?” inquired 
Bob. 

“ Oh, something will turn up,” declared the 
boy in a bored way. 

“ Have you any money ? ” asked Bob. 

“ Not a cent.” 

“ And no friends here ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ I don’t see,” said Bob impulsively, <c how you 
can take it so indifferently. You have been sick, 
have n’t you? ” 

“ Cut ankle, yes.” 

“ It has crippled you. Look here, I don’t 
know you, but you ’re homeless and friend- 
less — ” 


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TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“You say that very solemn,” remarked the 
stranger with a droll smile. “ Some people don’t 
care for home. Some people find friends no use. 
I’m one of them.” 

“ I’ll tell you,” began Bob hesitatingly, “you ’ve 
got to find a shelter. I can offer you an indiffer- 
ent one — ” he was thinking of an old cot upstairs 
in the print shop — “ and we ’d see you did n’t go 
hungry till you get things around right.” 

The strange boy drew erect with a quick flash 
of his eyes. 

“ Are you offering me charity ? ” he challenged 
harshly. 

“ No, I’m anxious to give you a lift till you 
get on your feet.” 

“ I don’t make my living by my feet. My 
brains serve me for that. Don’t mind. You ’re 
a good sort, and I take you right, I guess. But 
I’ll manage.” 

“ If you don’t, let me know,” said Bob. 

He handed the stranger a Haven Brothers card. 
Bob was about to go on his way when the strange 
boy gave a whistle, fixed his eye on the corner and 
beckoned. 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 87 

Bob turned to investigate the object of his in- 
terest. 

He saw Stet, the office boy of the Eagle , pulling 
at a piece of rope, to the end of which was tied a 
measly-looking white dog. 

That is, the dog had been white once. An ac- 
cumulation of mud and grime had, however, given 
the animal a neutral tint impossible to describe. 

“ Hi, boy ! ” sang out Bob’s companion. 

Stet stood still, then sidled up to the steps. 

He viewed Bob in a shrinking, shamefaced way. 

“ What you want ? ” he inquired of the strange 
boy. 

“ Let’s have a look at your dog, son.” 

He snapped his finger and spoke to the sorry 
cur in a soft, peculiar tone. 

The animal looked at him, crept towards him 
and began to lose its slouchiness. 

The boy caressed it under the muzzle, stroked 
it, purred to it. It seemed to discover a friend. 
Bob considered that when a dog made friends 
with a stranger the latter must be all right, and 
thought a good deal more of the crippled youth 
than before. 


88 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


The latter seemed examining the dog for 
“ points.” Suddenly he fixed his eye on the 
downtrodden Stet. 

“ Your dog, son ? ” he inquired. 

“ Nop.” 

“ Where did you get him ? ” 

“ Picked him up.” 

“ Where are you taking him ? ” 

“ To the pound. They pay twenty-five cents 
for stray animals.” 

“ That your business — dog catcher ? ” 

“ No, it ain’t ! ” jerked out Stet sullenly. 

“ He’s a printer boy,” explained Bob — “ works 
at the Eagle office.” 

No, I don’t,” mumbled Stet. “ I did. I 
won’t any more, though — drat ’em ! ” 

“ Oh, have you left there ? ” asked Bob. 

" No— fired.” 

“ What for ? ” 

“ Dropping a bottle of beer from under my coat 
that Hemp Carson sent me for,” blurted out Stet 
savagely. “ He let me take all the blame, and old 
Mackey let me out. Never mind, I’m glad. I 
wouldn’t go back there if they’d let me.” 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 89 

“See here, son,” broke in the stranger, “ I'll 
buy your dog. I’ll give you a dollar for him.” 

“ You will ? ” cried Stet radiantly. 

“ Yes, come around for your money to-morrow 
afternoon.” 

“ Where ? ” inquired Stet skeptically. 

“ Right here. Hold on, though. Do you 
know this young man ? ” 

“ Everybody knows Bob Haven.” 

“ Then perhaps, Mr. Bob Haven, you will allow 
me to leave a dollar at your place — I see the 
address,” and the stranger scanned the card 
Bob had given him. 

“Why, yes,” assented Bob. 

“ Look here, son,” continued the stranger, 
as Stet stood eyeing him dubiously, “ I observe 
you ’re wondering if I’ll make good. Well, you 
keep that suit case for me till I pay you. See ? 
I can’t lug it around. I’ve got only a few soiled 
collars in it, but the case is good for two dollars 
at any junk shop.” 

Stet relinquished hold of the rope and took up 
the suit case. The dog nestled up to the strange 
boy as if he was a loving master of long standing. 


90 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Bob had no excuse for delay, but he was both 
entertained and puzzled over the queer proceed- 
ings of the moment. 

“ I say,” he spoke, “ it ’s none of my business, 
but you ’re a queer fellow.” 

The strange boy gave him a wise, odd smile. 

“ Think so,” he observed. “ Why ? ” 

“ You say you have no money, no home, no 
friends. Yet you buy a dog.” 

“ Oh, that ’s business,” came the rapid retort. 

“ You mean ? — ” 

“This,” and the speaker set his hand on the 
dog’s head, “ is my stake.” 

“ I don’t understand. ” 

“ Business investment. I don’t stay down 
long. I have bright ideas, see ? This dog will 
put me on Easy Street by this time to-morrow. ” 

“ It is a valuable dog, then ? ” suggested Bob. 

“ I’ll make him valuable,” asserted the strange 
boy, with a mysterious chuckle. “My price is 
two hundred dollars, and I’ll get it. ” 

“ I am curious to know how. ” 

“ When I bring that dollar for our young friend 
with the dismal countenance, maybe I’ll tell vou. ” 


AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE 91 

Bob went on his way. He was so occupied 
thinking over the whimsical episode of the hour 
that he did not notice what had become of Stet. 

The latter had gone off with the satchel. 
When he reached the corner he sat down and 
looked undecided. 

Evidently he found it an elephant on his 
hands. Then, as Bob passed him, a glint of 
suggestion showed in his eye. 

Stet seemed to form some sudden resolution. 
He took up the satchel and covertly followed Bob. 

The latter reached the printing office by way 
of the alley. 

As he neared the carpenter shop he stared at 
it in profound astonishment. From the inside 
echoed a hideous babel of squawks. Intermin- 
gled was the frantic cries of some human being in 
palpable distress. 

<( Murder ! fire ! take him off! ” rang out in 
alarming accents on the afternoon air. 

Bob ran promptly around to the front of the 
structure. 

The young typo witnessed the most extraor- 
dinary spectacle of his life. 


CHAPTER IX 


“ DUCKS ! ” 

A farmer’s double team was standing at the 
street curb. Its apparent owner was astride one 
of the open window sills. 

He was halfway in, halfway out, and seemed 
unable to move either way. 

His pose suggested that he was tightly glued 
there. His face was a working map of fright 
and consternation. 

“ Help ! ” he yelled lustily. 

“ What is the matter ? ” inquired Bob. 

“Murder! Fire! Take him off! I’ll be 
clawed up alive ! ” 

Bob Haven had to laugh outright. He made 
out the merits of the situation after a closer look. 

“ Drop it, Christmas ! ” he called. 

Something relaxed the strain on the farmer, for 
the latter toppled forward suddenly. 

92 


“ DUCKS ” 


93 

He lopped over, shot clear of the sill, and 
landed with a grunt on the ground outside. 

Bob glanced in at the window. The dog, 
Christmas, looked up at him, wagging his tail 
proudly. 

In his jaws he held a scrap of the farmer’s coat- 
tails. The loss of the same was discovered by 
the ruralite as he got to his feet. 

He looked sourly at Bob and shook his fist at 
the dog. 

“ Drat me, if I’ll ever be accommodating 
again ! ” he growled. 

“ Oh, it’s Mr. Griggs,” said Bob. “ You 
seem to have got into difficulties, sir ? ” 

“ Yes, I have ! ” snapped the farmer, “ and I 
ought to have the law on you. What kind of 
an animile do you keep in yonder, anyhow ? ” 

“ That ’s only our watchdog.” 

“ Only ! He ’s a tiger and lion rolled up into 
one. Why, blest if the critter even showed 
the tip of his nose till he got me good and foul.” 

“ Foul ? ” repeated Bob. cc Why, Mr. Griggs, 
it sounds to me as if there are several fowls here- 
abouts ! ” 


94 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


A deafening cackling din emanated from inside 
the print shop as Bob spoke. 

“ Ducks,” explained the farmer. 

“ Ducks ? ” echoed Bob bewilderedly. 

“ Sartain. Case of ’em. Produce. Sign that 
bi^l and let me go. I reckon that animile has 
held me there for half an hour.” 

Bob understood now, and he smiled broadly. 

Griggs, who ran a fruit farm about ten miles 
from Pleasantville, had come in the week pre- 
viously to order some labels printed for the fruit 
packages he shipped to commission houses in the 
city. 

He had haggled over the price in shrewd 
Yankee fashion. When the same was decided 
on he insisted on paying in “ produce.” 

It seemed he had arrived with the “ produce ” 
in question during Bob’s absence. The same 
comprised a crate of ducks. 

Being in a hurry, he had carried the crate from 
his wagon and pushed it through the open 
window. 

“ I intended to leave ’em here and call later 
for my receipt,” he explained. “ That pesky 


“ DUCKS ” 


95 


animile never let on till I got a straddle of the 
winder to give the crate a push clear of it. Then 
he nailed me. He let me in, but he would n’t let 
me out.” 

“ He is a good watchdog,” observed Bob. 

“ Good, your way of thinking, maybe,” retorted 
the farmer. 

“ Well,” as Bob receipted the bill he had pre-' 
sented, “ no hard feelings, only I’ll do a mail 
order business with you after this until you get 
rid of that dog.” 

Bob accompanied Mr. Griggs to his wagon, 
smoothing down the irascibility of a possible 
future customer in a nice, pleasant way. 

“ Got any children, Mr. Griggs ? ” he inquired, 
as the farmer took up the lines. 

“ A coop-full of ’em.” 

“ Wait a minute, then, I may be able to send 
them something that will interest them.” 

Bob ran back to the office and let himself in. 
He selected several pretty advertising novelties 
that had come to them as samples and a showy 
calendar, and presented them to the farmer. 

“Now that’s clever, young man ” said Mr. 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


96 

Griggs. “ Mirandy just wanted a big figure date- 
teller like that. When I want some more print- 
ing I’ll come and see you.” 

“ And we’ll chain up the dog. Good day, Mr. 
Griggs,” said Bob cheerily, and sent the customer 
on his way in rare good nature. 

“ And now for the produce,” said Bob. 
“ Ducks — eighteen of them. He has given 
good measure all right. The bill was five dollars. 
The ducks must be worth about forty cents apiece. 
But what in the world are we going to do with 
them ? ” 

Bob regained the office and inspected the crate 
curiously. 

Christmas, on a pointer-poise, stood ready to 
snap at the first incautious head extended beyond 
the slats. 

“ How shall we get rid of them ? ” reflected 
Bob. “We don’t want them at home.” 

“Say, Mr. Haven,” piped a hesitating voice. 
Bob turned to the door. Stet stood there, 
looking timid and undecided. 

“ Oh, it ’s you ? ” said Bob. “ What can we do 
for you, Stet ? ” 


“DUCKS” 


9 7 

“ Would you let me leave this case here till to- 
morrow ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ And call for that dollar the fellow with the 
crutch is going to pay me for the dog ? ” 

“ Yes — if he leaves it.” 

“ I think he will,” said Stet in a depressed 
tone. “ I hope he will. I’m gone up if he 
don’t.” 

Bob looked the little fellow over curiously. 
With his dirty face and disconsolate air Stet 
looked more impish than ordinary. 

“ Say,” observed Stet, setting the suit case in a 
corner, “ you ’ve got an awful nice layout here.” 

“ Think so ? ” 

“ ’Taint much like the Eagle — grease, tobacco 
and beer. They never sweep out, there.” 

“ Did you say you had quit working at the 
Eagle office?” inquired Bob. 

“ Yes, they fired me. It was mean, after 
Hemp Carson borrowing a week’s wages and me 
getting discharged for following his orders.” 

“ You must find a new job, Stet.” 

“ How can I ? ” demanded the youngster 
G 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


98 

seriously. “ All I understand Is the printing 
business.” 

Bob had to smile. 

“ Wish I could get into a place like this,” said 
Stet longingly. “Just wish it — oh, don’t I! 
It ’d just be heaven to be where it was clean, and 
no cuffing and swearing — among real human be- 
ings ! 

Stet cried as he said it. Bob, however, gave 
him no encouragement. He was afraid of any- 
thing that had the Eagle taint to it. 

“ Can’t you give me a job ? ” pressed Stet ea-. 
gerly. “Say, I’ll work for my keep till I show 
you that I’m straight — now.” 

“Weren’t you always straight, Stet?” asked 
Bob pointedly. 

" No, I was n’t. I got to be just like the crowd 
I was with. Say, it was me who sneaked up the 
stairs here and heard you and your brother talk- 
ing about your bid on the Novelty Works job. 
I had to — Hemp Carson made me.” 

Stet continued to weep. He acted broken up 
and desperate. Then, hanging his head, he con- 
tinued : 


“ DUCKS 


99 


“ If I hadn’t got fired, Hemp Carson was 
going to make me creep up here some night when 
you had a big form leaning against the stone, 
and throw a brick through the window and c pi * 
it.” 

Bob looked pretty serious at this abominable 
confession. 

“ I am sorry I did it ” went on Stet, “ but I 
could n’t help it. I was just Hemp Carson’s 
slave. Now I’ve got no job and no place to go. 
Father larruped me when I told him I was fired, 
and said not to show my face inside the house till 
I got a new job. Say, Mr. Haven, give me a show, 
won’t you? I love the printing business. I can 
handle forms right and wash them, and distribute 
type. I can even set a little. I ain’t no bad 
boy. I don’t use tobacco or swear, and I would 
not touch a penny that was n’t my own. I am 
just a poor unfortunate, and I need a friend.” 

Bob was moved. The frankness of the poor 
homeless mite touched him deeply. 

“ I’ll trust you if Darry will,” he said. 

“ Oh, if you will ! oh, if you will ! ’’cried Stet fer- 
vently. 


100 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Where do you stay now and how do you 
get enough to eat ? ” enquired Bob. 

“ I don't,, I slept on the common last night, 
and an old chum gave me his school lunch this 
morning.” 

“ Go and get a meal,” directed Bob, tendering a 
quarter. “ Then come back here. I’ll see what 
I can do for you. Maybe Darry would consent 
to your sleeping upstairs here till you can arrange 
to go home again.” 

Stet stood fingering the coin with glistening 
eyes and dancing rapturously from foot to foot. 

“ Oh, cracky ! ” he cried, “ Oh, cracky! if I 
could ever become a real printer in a real shop 
like this!” 

“You would have to take Christmas as a com- 
panion,” said Bob. “We can’t turn him out.” 

“ Huh ! ” exclaimed Stet, putting his hand fear- 
lessly on the animal’s shaggy head. “I’d rather 
sleep with a dog than with Hemp Carson, any 
day ! ” 


CHAPTER X 


STET 

Darry came into the office on the hustle about 
five minutes after Stet had departed. 

He was after some paper samples for a custo- 
mer waiting at the hotel, but took time to seek an 
explanation of the presence of the ducks. Bob 
also told his brother briefly about Stet. 

“We can’t afford any experiments,” Darry 
stated. “ I hope it is no trick of the Eagle crowd.” 

“ I’ll vouch for that part of it,” declared Bob. 

“Very well, if the boy is trustworthy and de- 
serving, and you can make use of him, follow your 
own ideas,” said Darry. 

Darry hurried away on business bent, and Stet 
returned after a while. 

He was complacent and grateful. 

“ I’ve had the meal of my life ! ” he said, ten- 
dering Bob fifteen cents. 

101 


M, 


102 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


<f What for — ten cents ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, when you know where to go and how 
to spend it.” 

“ Well, keep the change for your supper,” sug- 
gested Bob. 

“ All right. I’ll pay you back out of that dol- 
lar I get to-morrow,” promised Stet. 

“In the meantime I wiil give you a chance to 
earn a little something,” said Bob. “You see 
those ducks ? ” 

“ They’re fine ducks,” nodded Stet. 

“ A customer has paid us in truck. Go around 
to the storekeepers and see what you can get for 
them.” 

“ Eighteen,” counted Stet. “They’ll run three 
to four pounds each. We used to keep ducks. 
They bring forty to sixty cents.” 

Stet darted away on his commission. He was 
gone an hour. He returned perspiring, fagged 
out and dejected. 

“No go,” he reported. 

“ Why not ? ” inquired Bob. 

“ Why, someone — maybe your customer — 
brought a whole load in this morning. He 


STET 


103 


stocked three groceries and two meat markets, 
besides selling to the hotel.” 

“ Can’t you get an offer on them ? ” 

“ Yes, one man offered thirty-five cents. That 
is n’t enough. Say, Mr. Haven, if you ’ll let me 
take my time and my own way. I’ll sell them all 
and g rf - a fair price for them.” 

“ Try it, Stet, if you like.” 

Stet darted away again. He returned in a few 
minutes with a dilapidated two-wheeled handcart 
he had borrowed somewhere. 

At Stet ’s suggestion Bob helped him load on 
the crate. 

“ What’s your scheme, Stet?” he inquired in- 
terestedly. 

“ Why, the wholesale market is glutted, ain’t 
it?” 

“ It seems so.” 

“ Then I intend to get ahead of them on the 
retail market — I’m going to peddle those ducks 
from house to house/' Bob did not demur. 
He decided it would be a test of Stet’s abil- 
ity. 

The young printer had plenty to do that after- 


104 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


noon. Engrossed in congenial labor, six o'clock 
came around almost before he knew it. 

“I fancy Stet has fallen down on his propo- 
sition somewhere, or got stranded,” Bob decided, 
as he began closing the windows preparatory to 
locking up for the night. 

A rattle of ricketty wheels claimed his attention 
just as he set the key in the door lock. Stet 
rounded the building pushing the old cart before 
him. 

He was lame and covered with dust, but there 
was a sort of glorified expression on his face 
as he saw Bob. 

“ Hooray ! ” he piped, though rather weakly. 
“ Mr. Haven, I sold them all, and got fifteen 
cents for the coop.” 

“Well, well,” commended Bob encouragingly. 

“ I’ve got eight dollars and seventy cents.” 

Bob gave utterance to a whistle of wonder. 

“ Some I got forty-five cents for, some as high 
as fifty-five. There ’s your money.” 

Untying the blackest handkerchief Bob had 
ever seen, Stet counted out eight dollars and 
seventy cents. 


STET 


105 


“ Stet,” pronounced Bob in tones of profound 
admiration, “ you are positively a business genius.” 

“ It was hard,” confessed Stet, sinking to the 
steps and mopping his brow. “ Bet I’ve traveled 
twelve miles. I thought I was stuck about five 
o'clock, but a boarding-house bought four of the 
ducks. You see,” observed Stet, with a mean- 
ing glance at his tattered garments, “ I suppose 
they thought I stole them.” 

“ You are all right, Stet,” declared Bob, giving 
him a hearty slap on the shoulder. “ Now then, 
I am going to give you two dollars as commission.” 

“ Me ! Two dollars ? ” repeated Stet hysteri- 
cally. cc Oh, never!” 

“ Yes, I am, and come upstairs and I’ll show 
you an old cot you can sleep on, if you like.” 

“ Yes, I know about the upstairs,” answered 
Stet, looking gloomy and ashamed. 

cc You can stay here to-night if you want to 
do so,” continued Bob. cc In the morning I am 
going to make you a business proposition.” 

“ Say,” cried Stet breathlessly, “ you don’t 
think you ’ll hire me to work in the printing 
office ? ” 


106 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ Perhaps.” 

“Jolly! if I thought it Fd lay awake all night 
singing. Say, try me ! ” pleaded Stet wistfully. 
“ Fd work my finger nails off for decent treat- 
ment and a chance to be somebody.” 

“ I believe you would, Stet. Here is the key. 
You see, I trust a good deal to your honor — all 
that Haven Brothers have in the world,” added 
Bob solemnly. “If Hemp Carson should tempt 
you — ” 

“ Mr. Haven,” said Stet, bursting into tears, 
“ do you think a boy who has confessed how 
mean he has been, and told how hard he wants to 
do right, could play any trick on a person good 
as you have been to me?” 

“ I don’t,” answered Bob promptly, “ and that 
is why I trust you.” 

Bob felt that he was risking a good deal, but 
his kindly impulses prevailed. He left Stet with 
a cheerful word, told him to be sure and feed 
Christmas, who seemed to make friends with the 
forlorn refugee at once, and started away. 

Bob did not go straight home. He was turn- 
ing a good deal over in his mind. Bob knew 


STET 


107 


where Stet’s folks lived, and he made his way 
thither. 

The family were a shiftless set. The father was 
a drunkard. He was a widower, and a crabbed old 
aunt took charge of the large family of children. 

Bob had a talk with Stet’s father. The latter, 
half maudlin, told a long story of all he had done 
for Stet. He declined to take the boy home again 
until he reported with a week's wages in his 
pocket. 

“It would be rather a mercy to keep the 
boy away from such disheartening home in- 
fluences," Bob decided. 

He did not tell Darry what he had done that 
evening, as it might worry his brother. In fact, 
Bob was a trifle worried himself until he reached 
the printing office next morning. 

A pleasing surprise greeted him. The place 
was opened up for business. The floor was swept 
as clean as a parlor. The paper stock was piled 
up neatly, and the press plate cleaned and burn- 
ished like silver. 

Stet had meddled with nothing he did not un- 
derstand, and what he knew all about from his 


108 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

previous experience in a printing office he had 
done well. 

The boy had evidently made a tour of the town 
stores the night previous with his two dollars. 

He had bought a neat little cap, had got his 
hair cut, shined up his shoes, and his old tattered 
jacket had given place to a light sweater. 

Bob was immensely pleased. He liked to do 
good to others, and in the present instance the 
recipient had proven himself both grateful and 
responsive. 

Bob decided on no half measures. He sat 
down and made Stet seat himself opposite him, 
and he gave him a good talking to. The result 
'Was pleasing to Stet, for Bob told him he 
could consider himself a fixture for a week at 
three dollars, and sleep upstairs at night. 

Darry, coming in later, found the new appren- 
tice at work. He spoke pleasantly to Stet, and 
made no comment. 

Stet proved himself a model of industry and 
zeal all the morning. He seemed to know just 
when to talk, and just when to maintain silence. 

He anticipated Bob’s wants at the press, dis- 


STET 


109 


tributed type, trimmed paper, and did a score of 
little helpful things with an intelligent knack of 
familiarity. 

When Stet went off for his nooning, Bob felt 
very well satisfied so far with his services. 

Stet returned at one o’clock. He handed Bob 
a written sheet. 

“ c Two thousand envelopes, two thousand busi- 
ness cards, two thousand letter heads,’ ” read 
Bob. “ For the Plunder Store. These your 
figures, Stet ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, I made the estimate and they ac- 
cepted it. Is it all right ? ” 

“ You know how to charge all right,” sug- 
gested Bob. 

“ The Eagle people would n’t do it for less,” de- 
clared Stet. “You see, I know the Plunder 
Store people, I put out a fire there one night and 
saved the place, they say. When I told them 
to-day I was trying to work up a new job for my- 
self, they gave me that order right away. Say, 
Mr. Haven, is all this luck, or your goodness, or 
am I really good for something ? ” 

“You’re a capital fellow, Stet,” declared Bob 


no 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


honestly, “and I’m glad and proud to have you 
with us.” 

Poor Stet pretended to busy himself at some 
type to hide his tears — but they were tears of joy 
and gratitude. 

Stet’s only disappointment was that the boy 
who had bought the dog from him had not 
appeared with the promised dollar. 

Bob narrated Stet’s progress to his brother that 
evening at home, and Darry was as much pleased 
as himself. 

Stet improved constantly. The office was a 
degree cleaner, if that could be possible, than the 
first morning of his apprenticeship. His awk- 
wardness and cringing looks of fear began to wear 
off. He was cheerful, happy and accommodating. 

Bob was alone in the office one afternoon, 
when Stet, who had been sent out on an errand, 
came into the office on a rush. 

He was greatly excited, and he waved his hand 
towards the street in a convulsive way. 

“ Quick, Mr. Haven ! ” he shouted breath- 
lessly. “ I want to show you the sight of your 
life 1 ” 


CHAPTER XI 


THE ZEBRA DOG 

Bob Haven was yet enough of the average boy 
to be lifted from his business balance at the sug- 
gestion of undue excitement. 

Stet ran out to the street again and stopped 
animatedly looking towards the next corner, 
beckoning wildly to Bob. 

It was raining gently, but Bob did not mind 
that. Composing stick in hand, he went out 
to the walk and joined his young apprentice. 

The corner building was the one pretentious 
office structure of Pleasantville. At its new curb 
a spirited team of horses attached to a dog-cart 
was tied. 

“ Colonel Harrington's turn-out," said Bob. 

“ That ’s it," bolted Stet with a chuckle. fc Look 
at the crowd." 

“ What are they gaping at ? " inquired Bob. 
ill 


1 12 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ Come nearer. See, on the front seat.” 

“ A dog.” 

“ The white dog I sold to that checked suit 
fellow. 

“ That is n’t a white dog.” 

“No, but he was once. It’s the same dog. 
Say — oh, I’ve got to laugh ! ” 

Stet did laugh, till he had to hold his sides. Bob 
went twenty feet nearer. 

A crowd stood under an awning. Each mem- 
ber of it was on a broad grin. They seemed 
to be exchanging remarks that increased prevailing 
risibilities, staring fixidly at the Harrington outfit. 

The object of their attention was the dog Stet 
had indicated to Bob. 

The canine had a heavy brass-studded collar 
about his throat. He sat patient and conspic- 
uous on the front seat. 

At a distance the animal seemed symetri- 
cally spotted and striped. As Bob’s keen eyes 
ran him over mechanically, however, the young 
typo began to “ catch on ” and grin like the 
others. Truly the dog presented a unique ap- 
pearance. 


THE ZEBRA DOG 


1 13 

The rain was beginning to soak his hide. 
From nose to tail the spots and stripes began 
to spread, blur and run. 

A purplish yellow tinge overspread the general 
surface. This changed rapidly to a dirty white, 
the colors dripping in a little pool on the tan 
leather cushions. 

The cur seemed to realize that some remarkable 
transformation was going on, and hung its head 
in a shamed way. 

“ What ’s the oracle, Stet ? ” propounded the 
puzzled and interested Bob. 

“ Colonel^ dog.” 

“ So you say.” 

“ Colonel Harrington's inside the barroom 
at the corner there now. I saw him. He ’s 
bragging about that very dog. Drove up here 
about an hour ago with the dog. Beautiful dog, 
then. But it had n’t rained! ” 

Bob put back for the office as a fresh dash 
of rain threatened to soak them. Stet followed 
him. 

“ Go on with your story,” urged Bob. 

“ There’s an item in the Eagle , just off the 
H 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


1 14 

press. It says that Colonel Harrington has 
bought a very rare and valuable zebra dog, 
from Cape Natal, Africa.” 

“ Is that so.” 

“ Someone in the crowd said he ’d paid two 
hundred dollars for it. Don’t you see? He’s 
been buncoed.” 

“ You don’t suppose — ” began Bob, with a 
start of intelligence. 

“ That ’s it ! The old white dog I sold to the 
fellow with the suit case. He’s a sharper, that 
fellow, I saw it in his eye. He painted or stained 
the dog, and played it soft on Colonel Harring- 
ton. Hurry, something new is up — hear them ! ” 

“ Here, you attend to business,” checked Bob, 
as his excited subordinate, at the sound of shouts 
from the corner, showed a disposition to bolt 
again for the street. 

“ Oh, please,” panted Stet, “ let me see the 
finish!” 

“ Go ahead, but only for a minute, though. 
Do you want to be a kid always ? ” 

“ Won’t go then ! ” muttered Stet sturdily. 
“ Oh, he ’s coming this way — see ! see ! ” 


THE ZEBRA DOG 


1 15 

“The colonel's dog-cart passed rapidly down 
the side street in full view of the printing office. 

Colonel Harrington's face was a vast blank of 
chagrin and rage as he whipped up the steeds 
savagely. 

He was urging them up to escape a pursuing 
mob, hooting and jeering at their unpopular 
fellow citizen. 

“ Zebra dog — Yah ! " 

“ Two hundred dollars — whoop ! " 

“ ‘ Our esteemed townsman has secured a new 
and valuable acquisition,' " quoted a strident 
voice in the crowd. “ Get fast colors next time, 
Colonel ! " 

The poor dog, resembling a mottled Easter 
egg as to tint, the colonel had rudely thrust to the 
floor of the vehicle where he was kicking it 
vengefully. 

Mob and fugitive drifted past and out of view 
like a rapid kaleidoscopic picture. 

“ I’d like to know if that fellow really got two 
hundred dollars," observed Stet, getting serious 
again. “ I’d like my dollar." 

“ I am afraid if what you think is true, he does 


ii 6 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

not work on a very high standard of morality, 
remarked Bob. 

“ Oh, I hope he did soak the colonel ! ” said 
Stet. “ There’s the meanest man in Pleasantville. 
He had father arrested and fined for sleeping in 
his garden one night when father was — tired. 
He hit me with his whip once because I tried to 
get across a street in front of his horses. And 
he ’s a sucker ! ” continued Stet. “ They say he ’s 
hoaxed a dozen times a year buying things to 
make a brag and show that don’t pan out gen- 
uine.” 

“ Mr. Robert Haven,” sang out an abrupt 
voice at the door. 

“ Oh,” hailed Bob, looking up from the case, 
“it’s you, Mr. Mills.” 

Baker Mills held a card in his hand bearing a 
name written in pencil. There was a peculiar 
smile on his face as he tendered it to Bob. 

“ ‘ Percy St. Clair,’ ” read Bob. “ Who’s 
he?” 

cc Don’t you know ? ” 

“Not I,” declared Bob. 

“ He seems to know you,” 


THE ZEBRA DOG 


ii 7 

“ That ’s where he has the advantage. I never 
heard of him before.” 

“Well, he’s one of our guests at the hotel. 
Star boarder just now,” said Baker Mills. 
“ Asked me to bring his card to you and fetch 
you back with me, if you would come.” 

Bob re-read the card ; he was puzzled. 

“ It may be one of Darry’s customers,” he 
said. “All right, I’ll come, but if he has any 
business with us why did n’t he come himself? ” 
inquired Bob. 

“ Couldn’t — laid up.” 

“ Oh, is he sick?” 

“ No — crippled. Was with us before for nearly 
a month, and had a cut foot. Went away a day 
or two ago, pretty small potatoes. Came back 
again yesterday, lordly as a nabob. Only his foot 
was worse — ” 

“ Oho ! ” exclaimed Bob, “ I know him now. 
He wears a checked suit — ” 

“He did,” corrected Baker Mills with a broad 
smile. “ This morning he sent down to a cloth- 
ing house. I wish you ’d see the dazzling raiment 
he ordered.” 


1 18 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Say,” said the observant Stet, edging up to 
Bob, “it's the fellow that gave me the suit 
case ? ” 

“It looks that way,” assented Bob. 

“ Going to see him ? ” 

“ I reckon I’d better.” 

“ Then just remind him that he owes me a 
dollar,” suggested the practical Stet. 


CHAPTER XII 


PERCY ST. CLAIR 

Bob washed up, tidied himself a bit, and 
was soon ready to accompany Baker Mills to the 
hotel. 

The latter was never very communicative on 
any subject. However, by vigorous pumping, 
Bob learned that Percy St. Clair had been a 
remarked and remarkable guest of the hostelry. 

“ He is what you might call a mixer,” vouch- 
safed Mills. “He arrived at the hotel in charge 
of a surgeon, his foot all bound up, about a 
month ago. Had plenty of money and spent it 
liberally. Everybody liked him, for he was gen- 
erous with his tips. Struck hard luck, shot 
up to the garret a story at a time, and left in 
debt. Yesterday he came back in a carriage, 
paid up, took the best room on the parlor floor, 
and this morning took the adjoining room. Took 

some chum in with him, I believe.” 

119 


120 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ I wonder what he wants to see me about ? ” 
mused Bob. 

“ Don’t know, but he sent me. He ’s a queer 
fellow. Strikes me as a pretty capable young 
man gone wrong and reckless, though he has no 
bad habits except smoking cigarettes.” 

Baker Mills led Bob to a room on the second 
floor of the hotel, tapped at a door, and left him 
there. 

“ Come in,” signaled a cheery voice. 

Bob entered. He closed the door after him 
and stood for a moment critically surveying his 
host. 

The stranger boy, this Percy St. Clair, sat 
in an armchair, one foot resting on a cushion on 
another chair, his crutch by his side. 

He had always looked natty and neat when 
Bob had met him, but he was elaborately gotten 
up just now. 

He wore a magnificently flowered smoking 
coat, and was puffing at his customary cigarette. 

Trousers and vest were of a bright greenish 
hue, and his tie conspicuously brilliant. 

By his side was a small stand. It held five 


PERCY ST. CLAIR 


I 2 I 


little paper boxes, and Percy St. Clair’s hand 
rested on these. 

He bowed with a pleasant smile to Bob, and indi- 
cated a chair near by. Then he scanned Bob 
from top to toe. There was a peculiar expression 
on his face as he did so. 

“ You sent for me, Mr. — ” 

“St. Clair,” supplemented his host, with a 
wink. Good name, eh ? ” 

“ Is it yours ? ” asked Bob bluntly. 

“ It answers, does n’t it ? I sent for you, and 
I am much obliged to you for coming. It did n’t 
do my cut foot any good tramping around town day 
before yesterday, and I won’t get out for a day or 
two longer, the doctor says. That ’s why I did n’t 
call with that dollar I promised. Are you still in 
touch with our interesting young friend, the dog 
pound boy ? ” 

“Yes, he is working for us now.” 

“Well, give him this, and explain my negli- 
gence, will you ? ” 

Percy St. Clair drew a big roll of money from 
his pocket. He peeled off a bill and handed it to 
Bob. 


122 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Hold on/” demurred the latter, “ this is ten 
dollars.” 

“ Certainly.” 

<c The bargain was one dollar.” 

“ Technically, but Fm not mean. The boy 
furnished me my stake. I’m disposed to be 
liberal. Give him the ten.” 

“ You ’re a good one ! ” said Bob. 

“ No, on the contrary I’m a bad one,” admitted 
St. Clair in a hard way Bob did not like. “ Never 
mind that. The next business. Will you do 
something for me ? ” 

“ I’ll try.” 

“ Walk to the door and back — spry, as if you 
were in a hurry.” 

“ Is that a whim ? ” questioned Bob. 

“ Not at all.” 

“ All right. Here I am on exhibition ! ” 

Bob made the brief rapid journey with a light 
laugh. 

St. Clair followed him keenly with his eyes. 
Bob observed that he looked more serious as he 
again beckoned him to the chair by his side. 

“ I thought so,” said St. Clair — “ you’re it.” 


PERCY ST. CLAIR 123 

“ Who am I?” demanded Bob. 

St. Clair glanced at the corridor door and then 
at the one communicating with the next room. 

He leaned over, looking Bob squarely in the 
eyes. 

“ See here, Haven,” he spoke, u what did you 
do with that satchel ? ” 

“ Eh ! ” exclaimed Bob with a start — cc oh,” he 
steadied himself suddenly, “ you know me, do 
you ? ” 

“ Yes, I thought I did the other day — Im sure 
of it now. I didn't see your face that night at 
Parker's Pasture, but I'd know that quick athletic 
glide of yours anywhere. What became of the 
satchel, Haven ? ” 

“ I did as you requested — as I agreed,” an- 
swered Bob. 

“ How?” 

“ I sunk it in the old oil well — three hundred 
feet down.” 

St. Clair seemed pleased, and nodded in a sat- 
isfied way. 

“ Thank you,” he said. 

Bob hoped he would offer some explanation 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


124 

concerning the mysterious satchel and the tragic 
manoeuvres of the night in question, but none 
was tendered. 

Instead, St. Clair drew out his roll of bank 
notes again and took off three bills. 

“ I want to give you twenty-five dollars. Ha- 
ven,” he said. 

“ What for ? ” 

“ You did me a great service that night.” 

“ Then I am glad.” 

“ And I want to show my appreciation of your 
great kindness.” 

Bob put his hands resolutely behind him and 
shook his head. 

“ I don’t accept pay for friendly services,” he 
announced. 

Percy St. Clair shrugged his shoulders and 
laughed in his hard, cynical way. 

“ You’re wrong in that, Haven,” he asserted — 
“ but have your own way. You *re all right any- 
how. I thought it when I met you day before 
yesterday. I know it stronger than ever since 
this morning.” 

“ Another thing,” said Bob, after a thoughtful 


PERCY ST. CLAIR 


125 


pause, “ it’s a good deal of a mystery to me how you 
turn up so suddenly with a lot of money. When 
I saw you the other day you didn’t have a cent.” 

“ I told you I worked with my brains, did n’t 
I ? ” demanded St. Clair with a shrewd chuckle. 
“ I said that white dog was my stake ? All right, 
I borrowed some paint and chemicals. I am very 
much up on dogs, and I have a vivid imagination. 
I ascertained who your easy citizens of culture 
were, and I played my little part — see ? ” 

“You sold that dog to Colonel Harrington ?” 
“ Oh, you know about it ? Yes,” unblushingly 
confessed St. Clair, “ I did him up.” 

“ Do you think that was quite the right thing 
to do i ” 

“ Tainted money, eh ? ’’jeered St. Clair. “ Why 
so ? Colonel Harrington has fifty so-called 
curios in his cabinets which I know to be for- 
geries. He is always haggling for rarities. Well, 
I gave him one. Am I any worse than the Dres- 
den institute that sold him a Syrian relic that was 
made in a German factory ? ” 

“ Well,” said Bob, “ your fraud is known now. 
The colonel discovered it an hour ago,” 


126 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ How was that ? ” inquired St. Clair with 
calm curiosity. 

“ It rained.” 

“ Ha ! ha ! I see.” 

“ He'll be after you. Colonel Harrington is a 
bad man to fool. I should n’t wonder if he had 
you arrested.” 

“ No, he won’t,” returned St. Clair coolly. 
“ He can’t afford to show himself up to be what he 
is — a pompous, ignorant person who thinks he is 
an art connoisseur and a sport.” 

“ All the same,” said Bob, arising, “ I don’t 
approve of your methods.” 

“ I am quite out of your line, Haven,” said 
St. Clair, “ and I shall never intrude on you with 
any familiarity. I am not quite the worst in 
the world, though. But let that pass,” continued 
the boy, with a sharp frown, as if his emotions 
were not pleasant ones. “ I sent for you for 
another reason than all this.” 

He got to his feet and set his crutch under his 
arm. 

“ I’ve got a friend in that room yonder,” he 
announced. “ He’s one of your good kind, like 


PERCY ST. CLAIR 


127 


yourself, and he saved me being thrown out of 
here three days before I was, by sharing his little 
all with me. I came back to find him down with 
a fever and penniless. I want you to see him. ,, 

“ Do I know him, then ? ” inquired Bob in 
some astonishment. 

“You do.” 

“ Who is he ? ” 

“His name is Augustus Chase. He asked 
me to send for you. He wants to see you.” 

“ I wonder what for ? ” spoke Bob wonderingly, 
almost to himself. 

“ He wants to sell you his newspaper.” 

Bob Haven experienced a thrill. An eager 
light shot into his eyes and his heart beat faster — 
it seemed as if he had caught a momentary 
glimpse of some fair promised land. 


CHAPTER XIII 


A GOLDEN DREAM 

Bart Stirling, slipping from the afternoon 
express at the Pleasantville depot, found a special 
deputation awaiting his arrival. 

His friends had been advised of his intended 
visit to the home folks. As Bart alighted from 
the train with a cheery nod to the depot master 
and a friendly word for the special watchman, 
either arm was seized in a firm grasp. 

Darry Haven imprisoned him on one side 
and Bob on the other. Their faces showed 
unusual animation. 

“ Waiting for you, Bart/’ said Darry. 

" Yes, we want you — bad ! ” put in Bob. 

Bart detached a hand and consulted his watch. 

“ I can’t give you much time, fellows,” he 
said — “ that is, not right away. Something par- 
ticular ? ” 


128 


A GOLDEN DREAM 


129 


"Vital,” declared Darry seriously. 

" Our whole future is in the balance,” insisted 
Bob melodramatically, " and we want you to 
tip the scales.” 

"Always at your service,” said Bart cheerily, 
"but IVe got to begin an audit of the books 
at the express office here and report by wire 
to-night to headquarters. It is three o'clock 
now. Can’t you fix it for this evening ? ” 

" That will do,” answered Darry. " We ’re 
pretty anxious, Bart. A big thing may be coming 
our way. There ’s lots to think of and arrange, 
and we want your advice. We heard this morn- 
ing that you would be here, and waited especially 
for you.” 

" Say seven o’clock, then,” suggested Bart, 
" and I’ll give you till midnight, if it is neces- 
sary.” 

" Good,” nodded Bob — " at the office.” 

" All right.” 

Bart went briskly about his duties. He was 
winning his way fast. Bart had the confidence of 
his superiors, and they assigned him occasional 

outside duties that were very pleasing. 

I 


130 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Bart’s practical experience as a thorough express 
agent had stood him in good stead. He made a 
first-class assistant manager at the city office. Re- 
cently they had sent him out on little jaunts 
like the present one. 

He made a kind of inspection and auditing 
visit to fourth-rate offices. Pleasantville was 
higher in the scale, but Bart had been in charge 
there, once, his father now superintended it, and 
his familiarity with its affairs, the company de- 
cided, would enable him to make a very intelligent 
inspection. 

They always allowed him two or three days for 
such trips. In the present instance, where his 
duties took him home, it was a sort of vacation. 

Bart had kept in touch with Haven Brothers. 
He had brought and sent them a good deal 
of work from the city. They had always asked 
his advice when they contemplated any important 
move. 

From the manner of Darry and Bob at the 
railroad depot, Bart knew that they had some- 
thing of more than usual interest in view. 

He was, therefore, quite curious and expectant 


A GOLDEN DREAM 


131 

as he neared the printing shop at precisely seven 
o’clock that evening. 

The office lamp burned brightly, the press and 
paper cutter were burnished up to the highest 
possible polish. Everything was neat, clean and 
in order. 

Darry and Bob were at the office desk awaiting 
him. The place looked prosperous and inviting. 

Soon the three fast friends were seated in 
a semicircle, the cool pure breeze sweeping re- 
freshingly through the open windows. 

“ Now then, what’s your news?” challenged 
Bart brightly. 

Darry hesitated as if to select his words. Bob 
anticipated him impulsively. 

“ We want to print a newspaper,” he blurted 
out. 

“ Good,” nodded Bart quietly. “ I fancied 
you would finally reach that conclusion.” 

* “ Then you approve of it ? ” inquired Darry 
eagerly. 

“That depends,” answered Bart cautiously. 
“A weekly, of course? ” 

“ Yes” 


132 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“Well, fellows, a weekly newspaper is one 
of two things — pretty good, or awfully bad.” 

“We know that,” said Darry seriously, “ and 
any idea of our graduating from printers to pub- 
lishers would be premature if a certain chance 
hadn’t come along. We are doing famously 
in the job printing line, Bart. We are making 
money and saving some of it. Bob is a trump 
at managing the shop. I seem to be making 
new friends every day. Still, Bob is crazy over 
the publishing idea.” 

“I am,” confessed Bob frankly. “It’s been 
the dream of my life, to run a newspaper. There ’s 
a field here, too, Bart, don’t you really think 
so?” 

“ I think the Eagle is getting more mossbacky 
every issue,” said Bart plumply. 

“ That ’s one thing,” continued Bob. “ The 
other is : our great chance.” 

“ What is the chance, Bob ? ” 

“Just this : you remember Augustus Chase?” 

“ And his society weekly ? Surely.” 

“ Well, he has practically busted up. He owes 
a lot of money. He has been getting out his 


A GOLDEN DREAM 


133 


paper later and later and worse and worse looking 
every week. He ’s lost his nerve and half his ad- 
vertisements. The paper is almost a wreck.” 

“ Where are his backers ? ” 

“ They *ve dropped him. He ’s been sick and 
discouraged, and has n’t lauded up the social stars 
the way they wanted it.” 

“ I never thought there was room for an exclu- 
sively society paper here,” said Bart. 

“ Neither did I,” echoed Bob, “ but here ’s the 
point : how for a nucleus ? The Journal has four 
hundred paid subscribers. That ’s a pretty fine 
circulation for a start. The plant is all right. 
The press is first-class, prints thirty- two by forty- 
four, and the office equipment is practically new.” 

“ I understand he put two thousand dollars into 
the business originally,” said Bart. 

“ Well,” resumed Bob, “ I say this : if we can 
get hold of that plant, put some new life into the 
paper and change the name and get into the reg- 
ular weekly field, it ’s a snap on the terms offered.” 

“ What are the terms offered ? ” questioned 
Bart. 

“ Why, it seems that Chase feels very grateful 


134 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


to us for helping him out on his paper. He hates 
Mackey and Carson of the Eagle . They have 
blocked him all the way through — they have him 
now in their clutches, in fact. He sent for me 
yesterday — he ’s sick up at the hotel. He made 
me a proposition. He said there was value in the 
weekly and he did n’t want to see it wasted. 
What was more, he would n’t let the Eagle crew 
wreck it. He owes, in round figures, six hundred 
and fifty dollars. Of this two hundred and fifty 
are claims that Mackey of the Eagle has been se- 
cretly buying up to get a hold on him. There are 
four hundred dollars distributed among creditors 
who will wait for their money, two hundred dol- 
lars a purchase mortgage on the press. The doc- 
ter says that he must get south for his health.” 

“ What does he propose ? ” inquired Bart, be- 
coming very much interested. 

“He says that if we can raise the two hundred 
and fifty dollars due the Eagle people and give 
him one hundred dollars cash, he will turn the 
whole business over to us.” 

“ Leaving four hundred dollars to pay later ? ” 
said Bart musingly. 


A GOLDEN DREAM 


135 


“ That *s it,” nodded Darry. 

Bart took up a tab of blank paper and figured 
thoughtfully. 

“ Well, what do you think of it ? ” asked Darry 
anxiously, as the pencil was suspended in air. 

“I think as Bob does,” answered Bart. “It’s 
a snap.” 

“ Good for you ! ” commended Bob, with a 
beaming face. 

“ Can you manage the money part of it ? ” 
questioned Bart. 

“ Just,” answered Bob promptly. “ The folks 
have four hundred dollars in the bank. They 
are willing to risk it. We have a little surplus 
for running expenses. You see, Bart, we would 
continue the job printing line.” 

“ Oh, you must keep that up,” advised Bart 
readily. “ The job printing department is the sav- 
ing clause in the average weekly newspaper office.” 

Darry expressed a vast sigh of satisfaction at 
his friend’s encouragement while Bob looked 
radiant. 

“ We ’ll show them a real newspaper ! ” the lat- 
ter chuckled. 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


136 

“ Could you give us an hour in the morning, 
Bart ? ” asked Darry. 

“ I think so.” 

“ Father says he would like to have you to 
stay by us to see that we make the deal legally, 
and all that.” 

“ All right,” said Bart. 

Bob got up and shuffled about with a gay 
dancing step. Bart smiled indulgently. He 
could fancy all the extravagant newspaper ideas 
floating about in the vivid imagination of the 
active young typo. 

“ Why ! ” exclaimed Darry springing to his feet 
suddenly, “ what’s this ? ” 

There was a rattling of the cinders on the path 
outside, a gasping sound. 

The next instant Stet bolted through the door- 
way at cannon-shot speed. 

“ S — say ! ” he ejaculated, running squarely 
against a chair and flopping there. 

“ For mercy’s sake, what’s the row ? ” ejaculated 
Bob, staring in amazement at Stet. 

The latter was wild-eyed and pale. He had 
been running furiously and was all out of breath. 


A GOLDEN DREAM 


13 7 


His collar was torn awry, his face was streaked 
with blood and his clothing covered with mud. 

Darry seized him by the shoulder and gave him 
a vigorous shake. 

“ What have you been up to now ? " he de- 
manded severely. 

Stet rolled his eyes prodigiously, gave a gasp, 
and said dolorously : 

“ No go ! " 

“ Eh, what 's no go ? ” challenged Bob. 

“ The Society Journal ." 

Bob started with apprehension. 

“Out with it ! " he cried — “ what are you get- 
* ting at ? " 

“The gig’s up. You're blocked sure. The 
game's queered," announced Stet in spasmodic sec- 
tions. “ Hemp Carson has nailed the Journal for 
keeps ! " 


CHAPTER XIV 


TOO LATE 

“ See here ! ” cried Bob Haven, “ what do you 
mean ? ” 

Stet gulped alarmingly. 

“It’s just as I say/’ he declared. The Eagle 
people have gobbled up the Journal .” 

Darry looked alarmed. Bob dismayed, Bart 
serious. 

“ How do you know that ? ” questioned the 
latter. 

“ Oh, it’s so/’ insisted Stet. “ Lemme tell my 
story.” 

“Tell it,” ordered Darry sharply. 

“ I was lying down on the grass on the com- 
mon,” narrated Stet, “ when I saw Hemp Car- 
son and a constable come along. Hemp’s new 
boy at the office, Jeff, was with him, but he sort 

of made himself promiscuous. He had a ham- 

138 


TOO LATE 


139 


mer and a paper of nails in his hand. I lost sight 
of him when I heard Hemp mention Haven 
Brothers/’ 

“ What did he say ? ” pressed Bob. 

“ I caught only the name just then. It was 
coupled with Chase and the Society Journal . 
That set me suspicious. They had just come 
out of the bar of the hotel. Hemp treated the 
constable to a cigar. They sat down on one of 
the benches. I crept up behind them. Then 
Hemp laughed in a cunning way. He said that 
fixed Augustus Chase, and settled the score 
against Haven Brothers.” 

“ What was c that,’ Stet ? ” inquired Bart. 

“ What he’d just done.” 

“ Did you learn what it was ? ” 

“ Yes, they’d been to the justice shop and got 
out a detachment.” 

“ Detachment of what — constables ? ” asked 
Darry. 

“ He probably means an attachment,” corrected 
Bart. 

“ Yes, that’s it an attachment,” nodded Stet. 
“ They’d nailed it on to the door of the Society 


Ho TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Journal office. That shuts the place and puts it 
ir^ the hands of a cuss — a cuss something.” 

“ Custodian.” 

“Yes. Then to-morrow they get out posters 
saying that the Society Journal will be sold at auc- 
tion in ten days.” 

Darry drew a long, anxious breath. He 
glanced at Bart, who looked pretty serious. 

Poor Bob’s face was working with mixed emo- 
tions of disappointment and apprehension. 

“Too bad,” murmured Darry. 

“Too late, it seems,” added Bart. “It’s a 
pity you hadn’t closed the bargain.” 

“ Would it have made a difference ? ” 

“ It would have shut the Eagle people out en- 
tirely, if you had paid their claims ! ” 

“ Supposing we offer them the money now ? ” 
suggested Bob. 

“ I doubt if they would take it. No,” contin- 
ued Bart decisively, “ they have taken this legal 
step, and it practically places the business in bank- 
ruptcy.” 

“ Then our chance is gone ! ” cried Bob 
bitterly. 


TOO LATE 


141 

“ Not at all,” answered Bart. “ Of course the 
Eagle people expect to bid it in. It would pay 
them to do it and kill off a rival. It is just a 
question as to how much interest the outside 
creditors will take in the matter, but I should say 
the property will certainly bring the amount of 
the indebtedness.” 

“ Six hundred and fifty dollars,” spoke Darry 
thoughtfully. 

“Let’s raise it, then!” cried Bob, pacing the 
floor in a fever of excitement. “ The cylinder 
press cost more than that alone.” 

“Where are we going to raise six hundred and 
fifty dollars ? ” demanded Darry dubiously. 

“ The folks have four hundred dollars in the 
bank. I know mother could scrape up another 
hundred. We have seventy-five dollars cash, fifty 
dollars out in bills, and can surely get in twenty- 
five dollars worth of work in the next week. 
That ’s six hundred and fifty, is’nt it ? ” 

“ Suppose it,” answered Darry, “ where is your 
surplus for running expenses ? ” 

“Well, we can arrange,” persisted Bob doggedly. 
“ I — I’ll sell my bicycle. The one I paid four 


142 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


dollars for at the express auction. It will surely 
bring thirty dollars.” 

“Not enough,” broke in Bart. “Keep your 
wheel, Bob. Tell you, Darry,” he continued, 
“I’ve got one hundred dollars in the savings 
bank. Til loan that to you.” 

“ Thank you, Bart,” said Darry. “ This new 
phase of affairs has knocked me out completely. 
Supposing those Eagle people won’t let the prop- 
erty go out of their hands at any price ? Suppose 
they bid it up to one thousand dollars — twelve 
hundred dollars ? ” 

“Then they’ll be paying for a very expen- 
sive whistle so far as they are concerned,” ob- 
served Bart, “and Chase will get more money.” 

“They have learned that we are in the field. 
I’ll bet,” said Bob. 

“ Stay in the field, then,” answered Bart. “ If 
you can’t possibly get the Chase plant, figure 
to get one of your own. You ’ve got the field, 
have n’t you ? See here, fellows, don’t look 
so glum. Where there is a will there is a 
way. You can accomplish almost anything that 
is right in this world by sticking to it. You have 


TOO LATE 


143 


ten days to muster your forces, and pretty 
near eight hundred dollars in sight. Take it 
easy, but keep your * eyes open. You don’t 
know what may turn up.” 

Bart’s encouraging words brightened up things 
considerably. The vital subject of the moment 
was temporarily dropped, pending an investigation 
into the causes of Stet’s disorganized condition. 

“ You have been fighting again?” said Darry 
severely. 

“Had to,” grinned Stet. “ And it was n’t my 
fault. When I crept away from that bench 
on the common, I knew I must lose no time in 
getting word to you. First thing I knew some- 
one grabbed me.” * 

“ Hemp Carson ? ” 

“No, his new office boy, Jeff. He had been 
watching me, it seems. He yelled to Hemp 
that I was a spy. All hands started for me. 
Jeff hit me with the hammer. That was enough. 
I thought of the news I had to tell you and 
I struck out — once, honest, only once,” declared 
Stet solemnly — “ but I must have knocked him 
twenty feet.” 


144 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Darry tried to take things hopefully. The new 
complication in affairs, however, set Bob on nettles. 

Bart had to leave Pleasantville the next even- 
ing, but he told Darry he would make arrange- 
ments to be back the day of the auction, even if 
he had to get a special leave. 

“ Keep your courage up,” he said — “ there will 
be a way out yet.” 

Saturday afternoon all Pleasantville went on 
a picnic. Haven Brothers closed shop and 
joined the general procession. 

The usual boat races on the river were a great 
feature in home athletics. Bob took part as 
a member of the crack club. Darry was also 
a member, but had gotten out of practice and 
had suggested a substitute. 

The river banks were lined. It was a scene of 
gayety and diversion. Darry piloted the little 
coterie under his charge, comprising his mother 
and Bart Stirling’s sisters, to a good view place 
on the bridge. 

All kinds of craft dotted the river. Darry 
had to smile at one boat that made itself even 
more conspicuous than the regatta specials. 


TOO LATE 145 

It was rowed by a river boatman, a big, husky 
fellow, and in the stern sat Hemp Carson. 

He was in his glory. He had set up a purple 
flag at the bow bearing the impressive words : 
“ Press Boat.” 

He was evidently waiting for some grand 
company from the social set of the town, and 
went hither and thither. He looked dreadfully 
important. Every once in a while he would 
stand up in the boat, bring out a tab of paper, 
and make a great show of taking notes. 

Then he would sit down in the stern, direct his 
oarsman to proceed, and was apparently busy in 
scribbling off “ hurry copy ” for his paper — 
which, by the way, would not be printed for four 
days. 

“ The big fraud ! ” murmured Darry, watching 
Hemp’s manoeuvres. “No — the big chump. 
Stand aside ! ” 

“ Darry! ” cried his mother in alarm. 

“ My coat ! ” shot out Darry, stripping it off 
and throwing it into Bertha Stirling’s arms. 

His words were drowned in a great cry, ringing 
spontaneously from the crowds lining the banks. 

J 


146 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


From the bridge they could not view the gen- 
eral prospect quite so well, but Darry had seen 
enough, and had acted. 

The Press Boat oarsman was engrossed in 
driving his craft ahead with swift, powerful strokes. 

It was Carson’s duty to steer and direct, 
but the manager of the Eagle Job Print was 
absorbed in making his “ grand stand play ” 
of showing off his reportorial attainments. 

Thus it was that the Press Boat, driving ahead, 
ran with a resounding crash into a little skiff 
directly in its course. 

The occupants of the latter craft were a well- 
dressed man and his wife, strangers in Pleasant- 
ville. 

They were drifting and watching the starting- 
point when the contact came. 

In one flash their boat went over, and both 
were spilled out. 

The Press Boat drove ahead. Hemp Carson 
simply looked back in a stupid, loutish way. 

The man sank, came up, grasped the over- 
turned boat and clung there. Bart saw from his 
terror and actions that he was no swimmer. 


TOO LATE 


147 


His wife went down also, and came up twenty- 
feet farther down stream. 

She was about ten yards from the bridge. 
With a gurgling scream she threw up her hands, 
and then sank again. 

“ Out of the way ! ” shouted Darry. 

He recklessly pulled the crowd, three-deep, 
from the bridge railing. 

With a spring he landed on the top stringer on 
tiptoe. Balancing there for an instant, watching 
the water twenty feet below, calculating closely, 
Darry waited till the woman’s frantic face appeared 
once again on the surface. 

A fearful hush had supervened along the 
crowded river banks. 

A great gasping breath went out as Darry 
Haven dived headlong. 


CHAPTER XV 


BRAVE DARRY 

Darry’s sure-poised body parted the water like 
a knife. For half a minute he was under the 
surface. 

When he came up he shook the water from 
his face. He glanced quickly around. Then 
he made two masterly strokes, and reached and 
grasped the woman as she was sinking again. 

She was unwieldy from her weight, and her 
frantic hands clawed out to clutch him. 

“ Don’t grab me, don’t struggle,” warned 
Darry quickly. “ Do just as I say, and you will 
be safe.” 

“ Oh, yes ! yes ! ” she gasped — “ save me ! save 
me ! ” 

Something in his firm tone and manner, in his 
confident young face, influenced the woman to be 
reasonable and obedient. 

Darry held one arm across her chest extended 
148 


BRAVE DARRY 


149 


upward under her left arm, his fingers clutching 
the dress at her right shoulder. 

“ Hold your breath and keep your chin well 
up,” he said. “ Splendid — you are a sensible 
lady,” he encouraged. “ Now then ! ” 

The overturned boat was fully twenty feet away. 
The Press Boat had turned towards them. 

“You clown!” murmured Darry between his 
teeth, as he noted Hemp Carson glaring stupidly 
at them. “ Nearer ! ” he shouted. “ Do you 
want us to sink ? ” 

Carson’s oarsman drove the boat rapidly to- 
wards Bart, who trod water, easily supporting his 
burden for the moment. 

Suddenly the selfish-souled Carson half arose. 
He spread his big hand towards his oarsman. 

“ Don ’t you go near them ! ” he quavered — 
“ don’t you risk it. They ’ll tip us over. They’ll 
wet the cushions.” 

“ Sit down, boss, and I’ll manage,” spoke the 
boatman. 

“No!” cried Hemp — “row me ashore first.” 

“ You cur! ” shouted Darry. “ Boatman, give 
me the side of the boat, I won’t tip you.” 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


150 

Hemp Carson arose, and fell full-length. He 
struggled in his terror like a madman. 

In his efforts to prevent the boatman from en- 
dangering his precious life by going near the ref- 
ugees, he unshipped both oars. 

They floated away, and Carson, bellowing like 
a bull, looked shorewards, screaming for assist- 
ance. 

The boatman, an old river veteran, gave him 
an angry shove, knocking him to the bottom of 
the boat again. 

He tried to rock the boat towards Darry, but 
the current carried both evenly, and he made no 
progress. 

Darry glanced at the overturned boat. The 
lady’s husband, helpless to give them assistance, 
looked despairingly towards them. 

“It’s shore or nothing,” muttered Darry. 

“ Madam, you are doing superbly. Now, just 
drift easily.” 

The lady was shaking like a leaf and her face 
was terror-stricken. Darry’s confidence-inspir- 
ing nerve, however, made her follow his directions 
implicitly. 


BRAVE DARRY 


i5i 

She was simply quiescent. This was all Darry 
wished. He was a fine swimmer. He balanced 
her just right, and struck out with one hand. 

Twice he had to momentarily drop her and use 
both hands to keep from going down. 

“ Safe,” he panted finally, and gave her a 
vigorous push. His feet had touched bottom. 

A dozen people rushed knee-deep down the 
sloping bank to lift the floating woman. 

Then a cheer went up. Darry Haven felt his 
very soul thrill. 

Never in the history of all the boat races of ten 
years had such a fervent, unanimous acclamation 
rent the air. 

His work was but half completed, however. 
As tender-hearted women bore the fainting lady 
he had rescued up the shore, Darry sprang 
to dry land. 

He fairly upset some gawking rustics from the 
end of a long light bench. 

With a whirl he sent it into the water. He 
sprang in himself after it. 

It was all easy work, now. Darry directed it 
like a floating plank towards the overturned boat. 


152 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Grab it,” he directed to the man clinging 
to the rolling craft. “That’s it. Your wife 
is all right, sir. Now then, just hold on, that’s 
all.” 

Darry drove his impromptu raft and its un- 
skilled burden ashore. A boat was putting out 
to rescue the craven, Carson. 

Darry caught at its side and swung into the 
company of its single oarsman. 

He was mad all over. Never in his life 
had he witnessed such pusillanimous cowardice as 
that exhibited by Hemp Carson. 

He felt that he must give the ignoble mis- 
creant a dressing down to relieve his outraged 
spirits. 

Darry rescued the floating oars. He threw 
them over into the Press Boat and grabbed its 
side. 

“ Get off the earth, you scum ! ” he blazed out 
at the shrinking Carson. “ Rather, get him 
to dry earth,” supplemented Darry to the old 
boatman, “and never disgrace your calling by 
taking such carrion aboard again.” 

Hemp Carson did not venture a word in 


BRAVE DARRY 


153 


reply. He slunk down in the yawl. In a 
shamed undertone he directed his oarsman to put 
him ashore at an obscure spot. 

Mrs. Haven was anxiously solicitous as 
Darry returned to her side. It was not easy 
to reach her. 

Big men slapped him on the shoulder with 
a cheer. A drove of small boys hung at his 
heels, giving utterance to enthusiastic yells. 

The Stirling girls viewed Darry with bright, 
commending eyes. They were very proud of 
their heroic young escort. 

Mrs. Haven insisted that Darry go straight 
home and change his attire. 

This he did. The races were on when he 
returned to the river. The rescue incident was 
obscured in the excitement of the regatta, and 
the man and woman he had saved had disap- 
peared. 

A timekeeper came up to Darry after the 
races were over. 

“ I have a card for you, Haven,” he said. 
“ That gentleman you saved asked me to hand it 
to you. His name is David Barnes. He 


154 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


belongs in Rockport, and took his wife at once 
to the hotel. He said they would leave on 
the first train and might not see you. But he 
would see you later. He would remember 
you.” 

“ I hope pleasantly,” observed Darry in his 
usual cheery way, “for he spent a pretty bad 
quarter of an hour hugging that slippery boat 
keel.” 

Bob’s crew had won the day. They were 
exuberant and crowed over the victory. The 
diversion from printing office routine did Bob 
good. 

As he was leaving the boathouse he edged up 
to a crowd surrounding somebody standing on a 
box in their center. 

This person had a high portable table before 
him. It’s top was covered with a piece of black 
velvet. 

He juggled five little paper boxes in his hands. 
Bob had seen those boxes before — at the town 
hotel. 

The manipulator was that “ chevalier of indus- 
try,” Percy St. Clair. 


BRAVE DARRY 


155 

He was announcing “ the last chance of the 
day ” as Bob came up. 

St. Clair would take out a two-dollar bill and a 
one-dollar bill. 

These he would put in two of the boxes, mix 
the five boxes up in a nimble fashion, and offer a 
pick for fifty cents. 

One of these boxes would seem to show the 
merest end of one of the greenbacks. 

Half a dozen countrymen took chances, to in- 
variably pick out an empty box. 

St. Clair coolly pocketed his gains, closed up 
his handy apparatus, and left the scene. 

Bob looked pretty severe. He glanced after 
him and then followed. 

cc Hi, there, St. Clair,” he hailed. 

St. Clair paused, turned, and gave a stony stare 
that petrified Bob. 

“ Speaking to me ? ” propounded St. Clair, 
without the slightest token of recognition. 

“ Don’t you know it ? ” 

“ Must be mistaken in the person,” announced 
St. Clair, proceeding on his way. 

<c You hold on,” said Bob, hotly pursuing and 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


156 

checking him. “ You’ll listen to me. 1 am 
ashamed of you, St. Clair! You were made for 
better things than this business.” 

“ What business ? ” jeered St. Clair, with a hard, 
cynical laugh. 

“ This gambling game, if you will have it,” 
retorted Bob bluntly. 

“You can't offend me, Haven,” asserted St. 
Clair calmly — “ I like you too well. I'm follow- 
ing my trade — it's the only one I ever learned. 
Can’t help it. I won’t starve. Those fellows 
take their chances.” 

“ It’s worse than the zebra dog ! ” proclaimed 
Bob. 

“ Oh, that ? ” said St. Clair with a chuckle and 
a shrug. “ I suppose you ’d think I was lying if 
I told you that although I coaxed two hundred 
dollars out of that royal chump and humbug, 
Colonel Harrington, I saved him ten thousand 
dollars.” 

“ Saved him ten thousand dollars ? ” repeated 
Bob vaguely. 

“ I did, and you helped.” 

“ I helped ! ” exclaimed Bob. 


BRAVE DARRY 


157 


“You did.” 

“ Again — how ? ” 

“ By sinking that satchel in the well on Park- 
er’s Pasture,” answered St. Clair impressively. 
“ Let that pass. It is true. For the rest, a word 
of advice, Haven : I like you. I wish my fate 
was yours, a decent, honest life, but — ” 

St. Clair swallowed a lump in his throat. 

“Cut it out!” he growled savagely. “It 
wasn’t to be. Only, one word of advice : Don’t 
recognize me — you can’t afford it.” 

And, turning on his heel, the strange fellow 
walked rapidly away. 


CHAPTER XVI 


AT THE AUCTION 

The great day had arrived. The Society Jour - 
nal was to be sold at auction to the highest bidder 
at two o’clock in the afternoon. 

Haven Brothers felt that the critical crisis in 
their lives had arrived. They were prepared to 
act accordingly. 

About all Darry and Bob had thought and 
talked of for nearly two weeks was the approach- 
ing auction sale. 

The job printing business had picked up won- 
derfully. Haven Brothers were doing a rushing 
trade in that line. Four nights in succession both 
partners had to work till midnight to get out 
some hurry orders. Young Stet helped them in 
a loyal way. 

The episode of the river races had been the 
talk of the town for several days. It directed 
158 


AT THE AUCTION 


159 


attention to Haven Brothers and brought them 
some new business. 

The Eagle had studiously avoided any refer- 
ence to it. In fact, Hemp Carson sneaked out 
of town for a day or two. 

The Eagle had a wretched account of the races. 
This led to considerable criticism of “ that old 
fogy, Jasper Mackey,” and convinced the 
Haven boys more than ever that the town was 
ready for a live, wide-awake newspaper. 

Stet had done considerable “ nosing around ” 
on his own hook. He was a natural-born ferret, 
and incipiently had the instincts of a great detec- 
tive. 

“Tell you,” he announced to Bob that morn- 
ing, “ I got the ins and outs of the whole attach- 
ment business. Hemp Carson meant to play the 
Eagle dirt. He put up the scheme so a backer 
could get the Chase outfit for him. Then he was 
going to leave Mackey in the lurch and start a 
rival paper.” 

“ Is n’t he now ? ” questioned Bob. 

“ He can’t. I heard Mackey called him down 
good and proper. They had an awful row. 


i6o 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Mackey found out who the backer was and broke 
up the arrangement.” 

At noon that day work was suspended at the 
little print shop. Both Darry and Bob were 
dressed up, and at one o’clock Bart Stirling, 
arrived on the noon train, put in an appear- 
ance. 

There was a busy time going over the situation. 
All the pros and cons were discussed. Bart was 
as much interested as if he had a personal share in 
the matter. 

“ The hard, solid fact is that we stop bidding 
at seven hundred dollars,” said Darry. 

“ Made it eight hundred,” corrected Bart. 
ic I’ve brought one hundred dollars. I shall take 
pleasure in loaning it to you indefinitely. I 
don’t think the plant will sell for more than 
seven hundred dollars.” 

“You don’t know Jasper Mackey,” observed 
Darry. 

“You mean Hemp Carson,” supplemented 
Bob. “ He hates us like poison. Since that 
river business he can’t say anything impish 
enough about us.” 


AT THE AUCTION 


161 


The sale was to take place at the office of the 
Society Journal . 

When the boys arrived there they found quite 
a throng gathered. 

The auctioneer was the constable. When they 
entered the room the boys found him in consulta- 
tion with Hemp Carson, who had taken up a 
prominent seat on an imposing stone. 

Bart went around with his friends looking 
over the general equipment. 

“ It pans out better that I ever thought,” 
declared Darry. “ Bart, we must get this out- 
fit.” 

“We’ve just got to, and that’s all there is 
about it,” insisted Bob. “ Offer the whole eight 
hundred dollars, Darry.” 

The constable got up on the press platform 
and rapped with a brass rule. 

“Order, gentlemen,” he commanded. “You 
have all read the advertisement: ‘No division of 
the equipment, and terms spot cash.’ What do 
you start the bid at on the bulk outfit ? ” 

The town hardware man was the first bidder 
at two hundred dollars. 


K 


162 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


A junk dealer raised this fifty dollars, and sub- 
sided. 

“Three hundred and fifty,” said Hemp Carson 
in his sing song, tobacco-stained voice. 

A clerk from the bank consulted a slip of 
paper in his hand. 

“ Four hundred dollars,” he said in a bored 
tone. 

“Four hundred and fifty,” promptly put in 
Carson. 

The bank clerk shrugged his shoulders and de- 
parted. Evidently some city firm had wired 
a limit bid, and his duties were performed. 

There was a pause. The constable looked 
knowingly at Hemp. 

“ Four hundred and fifty dollars,” he announced, 
and raised his rule significantly. 

“ Five hundred,” said Darry Haven. 

“ Hello ! ” snarled Hemp Carson, turning 
on his young rival venomously — “you fellows on 


deck ? ” 


“ Yes,” retorted Bob spicily. “ Did you think 
we were under deck — or in the bottom of the 
boat?” 



AT THE AUCTION 163 

Hemp Carson reddened at the telling al- 
lusion. 

“ Six hundred dollars ! ” he snapped out. 

“ Six hundred and twenty-five,” said Darry. 

“ Six hundred and fifty.” 

Darry drew an anxious breath. 

“ Seven hundred,” he bid. 

Hemp Carson jumped down from the press. 
He was aroused. All his hatred of the Haven 
boys showed in his evil face. 

“ Eight hundred dollars ! ” he shouted, slapping 
his fist on a typecase. 

Bob uttered a groan. 

“ It ’s all up,” whispered Darry in a sinking 
tone to Bart. 

“ Eight hundred and twenty-five,” said Bart. 

“ Nine hundred dollars ! ” yelled Hemp Carson. 

“ There was a long pause. 

“ One thousand dollars ! ” 

A sort of thrill went through the crowd. It 
was pretty active bidding for Pleasantville. 

Hemp Carson turned around with a glare. A 
fine-looking, neatly-dressed gentleman at the 
rear of the room had spoken the words. 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


164 

Hemp was evidently impressed with his prosper- 
ous appearance. He dug into his bulging pocket, 
fluttered, fumbled, and in a lack-hearted way said : 

“ One thousand and five.” 

“ One thousand and fifty,” quietly remarked 
the gentleman. 

Hemp Carson looked savage. 

“ It ’s cash ! ” he gritted. 

“ Spot cash, of course,” nodded the gentleman 
sweetly. 

Bob stared wonderingly at the new bidder. 

Bart’s eyes were bright. His half-parted lips 
showed that his breath was coming quickly. 

Darry was a picture of puzzled wonderment. 
In a glance he recognized the gentleman. Bob 
divined this. 

“ Darry,” he whispered, “ who is it ? ” 

“ Mr. David Barnes, the gentleman who fell 
into the river from the boat.” 

“ Oh — why — ” 

“ Going, going — gone ! ” sang out the auction- 
eer, after an inquisitive glance at Hemp Carson, 
who shook his head dejectedly and slunk from 
the room. 


AT THE AUCTION 165 

“ Gone for ten hundred and fifty dollars, ” con- 
tinued the auctioneer, “ and sold to — ” 

“Haven Brothers. There's your money. 
My young friend, how do you do?” 

The speaker had drawn out a wallet. Then he 
stepped forward and extended his hand to Darry 
with a bright smile. 

“ I — I hardly knew you,” stammered Darry, 
understanding the situation but too overcome to 
grasp it all in a moment. 

“ Darry,” cried the palpitating Bob, “ does he 
mean — ” 

“ I mean, young man,” observed Mr. David 
Barnes, “ that I have bought this plant as a slight 
token of the estimation in which I hold this brave 
friend, who saved my life and the life of my 
wife.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


FREE ADVERTISING 

S - 
* ' 

“ Are you crazy, Stet ? ” 

“ No, only proud — hooray ! ” 

“ See here, Stet, you ’ll rouse the town ! 99 

“ Intend to ! Does she blaze ? hooray ! Will 
the Eagle people see it ? — whoop ! Maybe they’ll 
run it down as c a disastrous conflagration,’ and 
get out an extra. Whoop ! hooray ! ” 

Bob Haven’s mind was in a wild fever over the 
events of the day, but Stet discounted his excite- 
ment and the emotion ten to one. 

It was seven o’clock in the evening, and Bob, 
Darry and Bart Stirling were homeward bound. 

They were all tired, for the day had been one 
of intense strain. 

Its pleasant ending, however, had imparted a 
sweet satisfaction that made fatigue a luxury. - 

Mr. David Barnes had proven himelf a royal 
166 




FREE ADVERTISING 


167 

friend, indeed. He had paid the one thousand 
and fifty dollars bid on the Society Journal^ plarife) 
in cash. 

He had seen to it that in due legal form the prop- 
erty was conveyed by court sanction to Haven 
Brothers, or, rather, to Mr. George Haven, their 
father and representative, Darry and Bob being 
under age. 

Then he had invited the three boys to the ho- 
tel to a neat little luncheon. He seemed to ex- 
perience a placid delight in listening to the plans 
of the enthusiastic “ Boy Publishers/’ as he 
termed them. 

Darry insisted on one point. He would not 
budge from this position : They could not ac- 
cept the liberal assistance of Mr. Barnes except as 
a temporary accommodation. 

Mr. Barnes with reluctancy finally consented 
to allow them to pay him three hundred and fifty 
dollars cash. They also gave him a note for 
seven hundred dollars. 

“ That is business, Mr. Barnes,” insisted Darry. 
“We would not feel half as ambitious or inde- 
pendent if we accepted that plant as a gift.” 


1 68 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ I shall never press payment on this note,” 
declared the Rockport manufacturer decisively. 

“ It will be paid, all the same,” said Darry. 

“ I shall have to lose that, note, young man ! ” 
solemnly insisted Mr. Barnes. 

“ Then you will put us to the trouble of send- 
ing you a new one,” laughed Darry. “ Mr. Barnes, 
you have done us the service of our lives. You 
have made it possible for us to get hold of this 
newspaper plant. Let us work out our own sal- 
vation, now we are encouraged by the confidence 
of so good a friend as you have been to us.” 

“ I agree,” said Mr. Barnes, “ on one restric- 
tion : that if you run up against any snags, if you 
need more capital, I shall be the first person you 
will apply to.” 

“ I promise that, sir,” pledged Darry. 

When Mr. Barnes left them to catch the even- 
ing train for Rockport, he invited all three of 
them to call upon Mrs. Barnes and himself when- 
ever they came to the city. 

“ You, being located there,” said Mr. Barnes to 
Bart, “ I hope to see often. I feel pretty glad that 
my accidental meeting with you put me in posses- 


FREE ADVERTISING 


169 

sion of certain facts. They enabled me to be here 
on time. Good-bye, my friends, and godspeed 
to your splendid enterprise ! ” 

“ He ’s a trump ! ” burst out Bob enthusiasti- 
cally, as Mr. Barnes stepped into a cab en route 
for the railway depot. 

“ See here, Mr. Bart Stirling, 0 challenged 
Darry Haven, turning promptly on the young 
express manager, “what *s this secret ? ” 

“ What secret ? ” smiled Bart coolly, but with a 
telltale blush. 

“No bluffing, now ! ” persisted Darry. “ What 
did Mr. Barnes mean when he referred to a 
certain accidental meeting with you at Rock- 
port ? ” 

“ Oh, that ’s all right,” said Bart frankly. 
“ You remember sending me an order for some 
blank account books for the grocers here ? ” 

“ Yes,” nodded Darry. 

“Well, Mr. Barnes is of Barnes & Bray- 
ton, manufacturers of loose-leaf ledgers and 
the like. I was in their place. After ordering 
the blank books you wanted, I directed them to 
be expressed to you at Pleasantville. The order 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


170 

and the cash went to the office. While I was 
waiting for the receipt, word came from Mr. 
Barnes that he wished to see me. It seems 
he heard the bookkeeper mention Pleasantville, 
and had glanced at the order. 

“ I see,” murmured Darry. 

“He made me sit down in his private office,” 
narrated Bart. “ He asked me all about Pleasant- 
ville. He asked me all about you. In fact, be- 
fore I was aware of it he was in possession 
of all the facts about your plans, your hopes, and 
the auction. I fancied he intended to do some- 
thing for you. I even believe if he had not got 
here in time for the auction, he would have 
insisted on starting you in with a brand-new 
newspaper outfit.” 

It was just at dusk after this little colloquy 
that the trio, homeward bound, had their atten- 
tion directed to a great flare in the direction of 
the old carpenter shop. 

They hurried their steps. As soon as they got 
on the main street, however, they discovered that 
the glare was that of a great bonfire. 

It was as they reached the roaring, spark-spit- 


FREE ADVERTISING 


171 

ting pile of tar barrels and dry goods boxes that 
Bob discovered Stet. 

Stet had “ heard the news.” It was soon “ all 
over town.” 

He had collected a big boyish contingent, and 
they were Cf celebrating.” 

To inquiring pedestrians seeking the cause of 
the same, the noisy mob announced that they were 
signalizing the advent of a new newspaper — “ twict 
the size of the Eagle” and “ mebbe a daily.” 

Haven Brothers were compelled to leave the 
jubilating Stet to his own devises. 

“ The free advertising won’t do you any harm,” 
Bart advised the boy publishers. 

The next morning, however, they were some- 
what serious over the pernicious enterprise and 
activity of their loyal young cohort. 

As the grinning Stet himself audaciously ad- 
mitted, he had “ rubbed it into the Eagle good 
and hard.” 

His mob of assistants had got paper and mark- 
ing ink. The Eagle door bore the blurred 
announcement : cc Dying of dry rot.” 

On the Eagle bulletin board was the second 


172 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


scrawled legend : “ Buy the new weekly — out 
next week.” 

In addition to this, they had met Hemp Carson. 
The manager of the Eagle Job Print had sought 
to drown his troubles after the auction was over. 

He was unable to tell friend from enemy. He 
was induced by the motley urchins to make a 
show of himself by mounting an old wagon and 
delivering a maudlin speech. 

This last effort overcame him. The wagon 
was drawn by the unruly mob under a conspicu- 
ous arc light near the hotel. 

They posed the unconscious Hemp on the 
wagon seat. They decorated his hat with turkey 
feathers and his cheeks and chin with marking 
ink. Across his breast they printed a big scrawl, 
reading : “ Dead Duck.” 

Bart Stirling gave Darry and Bob his time and 
services all the next day. 

There was a great deal to consider, a great deal 
to do. 

They formulated their plans in detail. Haven 
Brothers found they had assumed no trivial re- 
sponsibility. 


FREE ADVERTISING 173 

System, industry and common sense, however, 
promised to make the road smooth and easy. 

By the following Saturday, though at consider- 
able expense, the entire Chase plant was removed 
to the old carpenter shop. 

The job printing department was transferred 
to the second story, which was fitted up snugly. 

The newspaper cylinder press had to be taken 
apart and set up again after removal. They had 
to send to the city for a man to perform this ex- 
pert work. 

The following Monday morning a neat, modest 
circular was sent through the mails to the business 
men and general residents of the town. 

It announced that the following week Haven 
Brothers would ask their patronage for a new, 
live, up-to-date weekly newspaper, to be known 
as the Pleasantville Herald . 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A PLOT OF THE ENEMY 

“ Express office ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is that you, Mr. Stirling ? Please rush that 
paper, will you ? ” 

“ Is this Bob Haven ? Your paper came in on 
the noon train.” 

“ I know it did.” 

“And went out on the two o’clock delivery.” 

“ Thanks.” 

Bob had gone into the store nearest to the 
printing office to call up by telephone the express 
office at which Bart Stirling’s father was agent. 

He hurried back to the old carpenter shop. 
Darry turned from the desk. 

“ Are they going to hurry that paper ? ” he k - 
quired. 

“ Mr. Stirling said it went out on the afternoon 
174 


A PLOT OF THE ENEMY 175 

delivery/ ' reported Bob. “ I suppose the express- 
man has heavy deliveries, and has n’t got around 
to us yet.” 

Darry glanced at his watch. It was half past 
five, and near quitting time. 

“We have a big day before us to-morrow,” 
continued Bob, with a restless, anxious air. “ The 
paper must be dampened to-night, you know. 
If the fellow does n't hurry, we won't get home 
till seven o'clock.” 

Darry always adopted soothing tactics when 
his brother was disturbed. 

“Take it cool, Bob,” he advised pleasantly. 
“We have n't had much to complain of as ama- 
teur publishers.” 

“ Amateur ? ” cried Bob indignantly. “ I don't 
claim that class. If we are n't full-fledged pro- 
fessionals, who is? Darry, isn’t it a peach?” 
and Bob with sparkling eyes surveyed the forms 
on the composing stone. 

It held two chases, each locking up two pages. 
That somber mass of metal represented a heap of 
hard work. 

The cylinder press was a six-quarto, printing a 


176 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

thirty by forty-four inch sheet. By this same 
hour to-morrow. Haven Brothers expected to 
give to a waiting world the first issue of the 
Pleasantville weekly Herald. 

It was only by industry, intelligence and a 
natural knack that they had been able to reach 
the culminating point in the first stage of their 
new enterprise. 

The removal of the Chase plant had involved 
time, care and expense, and they had felt them- 
selves very fortunate in having a surplus fund at 
the bank to draw on. 

Augustus Chase, much better off than he had 
anticipated in a money way, had left Pleasantville. 

Bart, in the city, had been diligent and prompt 
in executing various important commissions for 
the boys. 

Mrs. Haven, skillful artist that she was, had de- 
signed a neat pictorial heading for the new paper, 
Bart had ordered an electrotype of this at Rock- 
port, forwarding it to the boys. 

Mr. Haven had revived his old editorial 
routine. He had written some splendid timely 
articles for the Herald. 


A PLOT OF THE ENEMY 


1 77 


The Eagle was an old style four-page paper. 
The Herald was to have eight pages. 

Four of these were set up at the office. A 
city auxiliary print establishment supplied the 
paper, printed on one side with select general 
matter. 

Now, everything was ready. The press was 
operated by a crank, and had been fully tested. 

Darry had acted as manager and reporter. He 
had made many good friends for the paper. 

For some time past the Eagle had been making 
enemies. It had been hammering some worthy 
local officials and private parties. It had attacked 
a local merchant, and printed a mean article about 
himself and his family because he had refused to 
take increased advertising space. 

This gentleman, naturally indignant, had at 
once gone over with his support to the new 
paper, and he had influenced other merchants to 
join him. The Herald would appear on the 
market with two columns of bona fide advertise- 
ments. 

There was, too, another feature which the boys 
kept very secret. 

L 


178 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

As the reader already knows, Mrs. Haven was 
regularly engaged to draw fashion pictures for 
a city firm. 

That week there was a town meeting of im- 
portance at Pleasantville, followed by a procession 
of the fire department and one or two local 
political societies. 

Mrs. Haven made two pictures of the proces- 
sion in pen and ink, and the boys secured 
a photograph of the mayor. Mr. Haven went 
to the city and had zinc etchings made of the 
three. These cuts now embellished the first 
page of the Herald. 

In fact, everything was ready for the first 
appearance of the new weekly except the paper. 

This, the boys knew, had arrived on the noon 
train. They had awaited its delivery by the 
local expressman all the afternoon. 

“I ’m getting fidgetty,” declared Bob, as a 
quarter of an hour went by. “ Hey, Stet ! ” 

“Yes, sir/’ reported their willing young assist- 
ant, appearing from a corner case where he was 
distributing “ pi,” or mixed-up type. 

“ Put on your coat,” directed Bob, “ and hus- 


A PLOT OF THE ENEMY 


179 


tie down tQ the express office. Don’t delay, or 
Mr. Stirling will be gone for the night.” 

“ Why, you just telephoned to him,” suggested 
Darry. 

“ I know I did, but I want particulars. How 
do we know but what some lazy expressman left 
our paper till the last, and has driven it to his 
barn to deliver in the morning.” 

“ Oh, that would n’t do at all,” declared Darry, 
aroused at the suggestion. 

“ I should say not. You ask Mr. Stirling, 
Stet, who took the afternoon deliveries.” 

“ I’ll do it, Mr. Haven.” 

“ And then see if you can hunt up the express- 
man.” 

The local deliveries at the express office were 
often given by the company to the handiest of 
the expressmen, who were usually stationed with 
their wagons in the vicinity of the railway 
depot. 

Darry did some figuring at the desk after Stet’s 
departure. Bob looked over some proofs. 

“ I say, Darry,” Bob observed finally, “ how 
about Baker Mills ? ” 


i8o TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ He wants to come with us. As manager of 
circulation.” 

“ That ’s a pretty big term for a budding enter- 
prise, but he’s willing to take the risk. He’s 
got money enough to buy a horse and cart, and 
he wants to do it. He says he will do all our 
job print delivery, work up a circulation and ad- 
vertising in near-by towns, and make himself 
generally useful for a merely nominal sum until 
the Herald gets on its feet.” 

“ All right. Stet has our promise as to the 
first issue, and we must n’t disappoint him. Hello, 
what ’s up ? ” 

Just then, in his usual volcanic way, Stet bolted 
into the office. 

“ Trouble,” he announced breathlessly. 

“ How ? where ? ” demanded Darry. 

“ Felt it in my bones. Tim Murphy got the 
express deliveries this afternoon. He has n’t been 
seen around the town since three o’clock. He 
is the man who hauls the paper regularly for the 
Eagle people. He was drinking with Hemp 
Carson all the morning.” 

“ Darry ! ” cried Bob, all aflare with suspicion in 


A PLOT OF THE ENEMY 181 

an instant, “ if Carson is up to any new trick with 
us — ” 

“ Easy, Bob,” directed Darry. “ Go ahead, 
Stet — what else ? ” 

“ Why, I found out that Murphy had got 
pretty badly mixed up. Jeff, that’s the Eagle 
office boy, went off on the wagon to help him de- 
liver his packages.” 

Bob Haven jumped for his coat. 

“ See here, Bob,” said Darry, “ don’t get ex- 
cited. It’s a suspicious connection, that’s all. 
Murphy probably had some deliveries for the 
factories, and overlooked us.” 

“ Don’t believe it ! ” snapped Bob. It ’s a 
plot ! The Eagle brood are trying to make us 
late in getting out the paper. You come with 
me, Stet. I’m going to locate our goods and get 
that paper into this establishment to-night, if we 
have to tote it here on our backs. Come on ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX 


AN HOUR OF SUSPENSE 

Bob directed a speedy question to Stet as they 
left the printing office : 

“ Do you know where expressman Murphy 
lives ? ” 

“ That I do/’ answered the embryo typo 
promptly. 

“ Get there quick, then.” 

Stet was a sprinter. He lost no time reaching 
a poor quarter of the town. It was known as 
“ The Flats.” He crossed lots and cut down 
alleys. At length they arrived at a big barn of a 
house, very plain and very dilapidated. 

“Tim Murphy boards here/’ said Stet. “ I’ll 
see if he is home.” 

He disappeared through the front open door- 
way of the house and came back in about two 
minutes. 


182 


AN HOUR OF SUSPENSE 


183 

“Not here,” reported Stet. “This is Mrs. 
Maxwell’s boarding house. Murphy is a bach. 
He only boards and rooms here. ‘ Not home 
yet,’ she says.” 

“Then he must still be on his route,” sug- 
gested Bob. 

“ We can soon find out.” 

“ How ? ” 

“He keeps his horse at Fogarty’s barn.” 

“ Where is that ? ” 

“ Only two squares away.” 

They reached Fogarty’s just as a man was 
coming out of a big stable, a lantern in his 
hand. 

“That’s Fogarty,” said Stet, and Bob inter- 
cepted the man as he was locking the barn door. 

“ Mr. Fogarty,” he said, “ I am looking 
for Tim Murphy.” 

“ And who are you ? ” demanded Fogarty un- 
graciously. 

“ Bob Haven, of Haven Brothers.” 

“ Oh, yes, I know — the printers ? ” 

“ Murphy left the express office with a bundle 
of paner for us,” explained Bob. “ It ’s important 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


184 

that we should have it to-night, and he has n’t 
shown up yet.” 

“ And I reckon he won’t, either,” declared 
F ogarty, with a coarse laugh. “ See here. There ’s 
his wagon.” 

Fogarty pulled open the barn door. He 
flashed the light over one of several wagons 
in the big, roomy barn. 

Bob peered into it searchingly. It was empty. 

“ And where is Murphy ? ” he inquired. 

“ Upstairs ; asleep in the hay.” 

“ I must see him,” said Bob sharply. 

“ It won’t do you any good. He ’s snug. 
I had to carry him up. He was driven in 
here an hour ago by a boy. Murphy was dead 
to the world — I had to put up his horse. I 
tried to rouse him. No use. He had a half- 
empty bottle in his pocket. The way it smelled 
and the way he acted I should say it was 
doped.” 

Bob was in a positive fever of apprehension 
and anxiety. 

“ Ah,” he said, stepping forward — “ there is 
his book. Can I look at it ? ” 


AN HOUR OF SUSPENSE iS$ 

“ Sure, if it will do you any good,” assented 
Fogarty. 

The book was a brass-bound loose-leaf express 
receipt book. It held a yellow sheet in place 
itemizing the deliveries taken out from the express 
office that afternoon. 

There were some fifteen different deliveries. 
They ran from the hotel down town to the Nov- 
elty Works on the outskirts. Every item was 
tallied off with a receiving signature. 

Haven Brothers came sixth. A penciled scrawl 
showed the pretense of a signature. 

“There’s crooked work here, Mr. Fogarty,” 
said Bob — “ pretty near forgery. You think 
we couldn’t rouse up Murphy?” 

“ I’m sure of it.” 

“ Then you must hitch up his horse to the 
wagon. There has been some hocus pocus about 
our paper. I don’t believe Murphy was a willing 
party to it. But I’ve got to recover that paper. 
It’s either you cooperating with us in trying 
to find it, or I shall at once have Murphy 
arrested. 

Fogarty looked serious. 


1 86 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ What do you want the rig for ? ” he in- 
quired. 

“To go over the route Murphy took this 
afternoon, and see if he has n’t left our package 
somewhere.” 

“ All right. I’m Tim Murphy’s friend, and I 
believe he ’s an honest man. The horse is fed. 
I’ll hitch him up in a jiffy.” 

Five minutes later, Bob on the wagon seat, 
Stet by his side, they drove out of the stable. 

Stet had questioned Fogarty closely while 
he was putting the harness on the horse. 

“Drive to Jeff Slocum’s house first, Mr. 
Haven,” he suggested. 

“ Yes,” nodded Bob. “ There is no doubt that 
he has been the guiding spirit in this affair.” 

Stet directed Bob. When they turned a corner 
he told his companion to drive to the side of the 
road and wait there. 

Stet walked past a row of miserable hovels till 
he came to Jeff’s house. The door opened 
as he neared it. Stet jumped behind a tree. 

Jeff himself had just left the house. He 
started on a run down the street trilling a 


AN HOUR OF SUSPENSE 187 

shrill call, apparently for chums who lived near 
neighbors. 

As he neared the tree Stet darted out. He 
clutched the astonished Jeff neck and shoulder. 

“ I want you/’ he observed. “ Holler, and 
I’ll shut off your breath. You know me. No 
scuffling, or I’ll eat you up ! ” 

Jeff stared in terror at the adversary who 
had knocked him twenty feet on a recent oc- 
casion. 

“ W — what you want ? ” he stammered. 

“ Me — nothing. The law wants you, though, 
Jeff Slocum. Do you see that wagon at the cor- 
ner? Well, march to it, march straight, march 
quick, or it ’s you to the reform school.” 

“ I ain’t done nothing ! ” 

“ Huh ! Oh, no — only forgery, ten years. 
Only conspiracy, ten more. Only robbing the 
express company, ten more. Oh, you ’re an in- 
nocent guy. Huh ! ” 

Jeff Slocum began to quake. His face was 
white. He was sniveling as his captor shoved 
him up to the wagon. 

“ Here he is, Mr. Haven,” said Stet. “ Show 


1 88 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

him that warrant — or shall we take him to the 
calaboose straight, and let the sheriff* serve it ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t ! don’t! ” bellowed Jeff. “ I ain’t 
done nothing ! ” 

“ See here,” said Bob sternly, “ you can go to 
jail, or you can remedy the mischief you have 
done. You have been engaged in a plot to get 
rid of the paper expressed to us.” 

<c I ain’t responsible. Hemp Carson told 
me—” 

“ We know all about Hemp Carson,” inter- 
rupted Bob. “ You have been with Tim Murphy 
all the afternoon, pretending to help him deliver 
the express stuff*. What did you do with the 
Haven Brothers’ package ? ” 


CHAPTER XX 


VOL. I NO. I 

Stet had urged and forced the whining culprit 
into the wagon box by this time. He held on to 
him. 

“ Suppose — suppose I can get it ? demanded 
Jeff. 

“ I’ll let you off this time/* promised Bob, 
<c and I’ll try and smooth it over with the express 
company.” 

“ It *s up at the Novelty Works/* confessed 
Jeff. “ You can thank me.** 

“ Yes, thank you ! thank you ! ’* mocked the 
vigorous Stet, ramming his fist into the neck of 
his captive two times in succession. 

“ You quit — that hurts ! ’* brawled Jeff. cc You 
can thank me. Hemp Carson said to get rid of 
it — dump it in the creek. When we delivered 

some other stuff at the Novelty Works, we had to 

189 


190 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


carry it into the storeroom in the basement. 
Murphy was helpless, and I had my own way. 
I took your package in, too, and slipped it behind 
some old barrels where it would n’t be found for 
a long time.” 

They drove to the Novelty Works. It was 
fortunate that Bob knew the watchman. After 
an explanation the bundle of paper was re- 
covered. 

Bob compelled Jeff to accompany them to the 
printing office, where they unloaded the paper. 

Then, after administering some sound advice, 
he made Jeff undertake to return the rig to the 
stable. 

“ I shall sleep here all night, Darry,” insisted 
Bob. “ There is too much stirring to run any 
risks now.” 

Darry waited until Bob had got his supper at 
a near-by restaurant. Then he went home. 

Bob and Stet got the paper spread out and 
dampened. They were up till nearly midnight, 
arranging everything for the press-run in the 
morning. 

Stet was up at daylight. He was as spry as a 


VOL I— NO. I 


191 

cricket, cheerful as a lark. He felt that a great 
day had dawned for Haven Brothers. 

The forms were arranged on the press, every- 
thing made ready. Stet at the crank, Bob feed- 
ing the sheets, they ran off two hundred papers 
by seven o’clock. 

It was a sample edition, and they intended to 
print two thousand copies. Up to noon Darry 
spelled Stet at the crank that operated the power. 

It was an exciting morning for the boy pub- 
lishers. At twelve o’clock Mrs. Haven appeared 
with a warm lunch for the three ardent laborers. 

She was delighted at the appearance of the paper. 
She helped them fold, and at three o’clock in the 
afternoon the long task was fully completed. 

“ Now then, Stet,” nodded Bob, a bright glow 
on his face. 

Stet ran out of the office. He reappeared 
in fifteen minutes bringing with him five boys 
about his own age. 

He stood them in line, gave each a bundle of 
papers, and delivered specific instructions as to 
the districts they were to cover. 

“ I’ll take the main street and the hotel, remem- 


192 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


ber,” he advised this little army of helpers. “Now 
then, practice the yell, and mebbe someday you’ll 
be educated enough to run a daily route. All 
hands. c Here’s your weekly Herald — illustrated 
edition. Full account of the big procession ! ’ ” 

The roof seemed to lift with the chorus. 

“ c Five cents a copy/ ” continued Stet. “ You 
get two cents. Off with you ! ” 

The youthful coterie dashed forth to scatter 
intelligence to the four quarters of the Pleasant- 
ville world. 

Mrs. Haven smiled happily. She was soon 
seated at the desk directing wrappers to in- 
close sample copies. 

Long after Stet had darted out with a bundle 
of papers under his arm, they could hear the echo 
of his strenuous voice all along the main street. 

People halted and stared as Stet made the air 
ring. 

“ Here, boy — give us a paper,” was a common 
hail. 

“Ten for the news stand,” ordered the hotel 
man. 

Merchants, lawyers, farmers at the curbs caught 


VOL. I— NO. I 


193 

the infection of Stet’s animation. The nickels 
came thick and fast. 

“ Hi, there ! ” 

Stet turned at the hail. He hesitated. From 
the doorway of the Eagle office Jasper Mackey, 
standing there with Hemp Carson, had called 
to him. 

“ Pleasantville weekly Herald — illustrated edi- 
tion,” bawled Stet, running up to them. 

“ Give us a paper,” ordered Mackey. 

“ Five cents.” 

“ Oh, we ’re in the profession — mark it on 
the exchange list.” 

“No graft or deadheads with the Herald /” 
shot out Stet. “ Here’s your Herald — ” 

“ Here ! here ! ” called Mackey, as Stet started 
off. 

Stet grabbed his nickel, handed a paper to 
the Eagle editor, and started on with his brisk, 
cheering cry. 

“ Illustrated edition ! ” growled Hemp Carson. 
“ Rot ! Some old cuts, I suppose — thunder ! ” 
He fell back dumbfounded, as his companion 

opened the fresh, neat sheet, 

M 


194 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Jasper Mackey gave a gasp as his eyes roamed 
over the clear beautiful cuts illustrating the parade, 
and surrounding a fine portrait of the Mayor of 
Pleasantville. 

“ They Ve done it ! ” choked out the editor of 
the Eagle , turning white with rage and stupefaction. 

The manager of the Eagle Job Print let out a 
yell of wrath. He tore the innocent sheet to 
pieces. He gnashed his teeth, he executed a war 
dance upon the fragments in his impotent fury. 

The Herald was out and the Herald was a 
success. 

Those two marplots recognized the fact. As 
the leader in the new paper stated, a new era in 
clean, up-to-date journalism had dawned for 
Pleasantville. 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE YOUNG EDITOR 

“ I want to see the editor.” 

“ That ’s him,” said Stet, nodding towards 
Darry Haven. 

“ It was the second week of the newspaper 
enterprise. The printing shop was beginning to 
receive many visitors. 

Darry turned in his chair with a welcoming 
smile. It faded a trifle as he recognized the 
caller — Colonel Harrington’s man of all work. 

“ You the editor ? ” said the latter in a con- 
scious, embarrassed way, probably recalling a 
former experience with Haven Brothers. “ I — 
that is, Mrs. Harrington told me to have you 
print this notice of her lawn party.” 

“ Certainly,” bowed Darry, taking the written 
sheets presented. “ We are anxious to print all 
the news.” 


195 


196 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ Thank you/’ said the man. 

“ Hold on/’ directed Darry in some dismay 
glancing over the sheets. 

Mrs. Colonel Harrington had written the notice 
herself* This was probably a duplicate of what 
she had sent to the Eagle . 

It was closely written and would make over a 
column. It was filled with allusions to the mag- 
nificent furnishings of the Harrington drawing- 
rooms, the Harrington genealogy, the Harring- 
ton possessions. It was Harrington, Harrington 
all the way through. Not a single guest was 
named. It was a fulsome, nauseating puff. 

“ I can't print this stuff," announced Darry 
definitely, after conning the precious screed. “ It 
is too long, and it is not news. Why, my friend 
this, is practically advertising matter. You had 
better take it back to Mrs. Harrington for revi- 
sion. We will be glad to give the function the 
ordinary notice and print the list of guests, but 
this matter as a whole — regular rates, ten cents a 
line." 

The Eagle prints it all right," said the man, 
with a flush. 


THE YOUNG EDITOR 


197 

“ The Eagle is not a newspaper,” called out 
Bob sharply from his printing case. 

“Well, I was to leave it,” mumbled the man. 
“ Mrs. Harrington won’t pay any ten cents 
a line.” 

“ Very good,” said Darry. “We will <lo the 
best we can with it, then, although we shall have 
to blue pencil it liberally.” 

“ The nerve of that woman ! ” muttered Bob, 
as the man left the office. 

Darry resumed his task. He was writing 
an editorial. His father was again on the invalid 
list, and Darry had to assume a double responsi- 
bility. 

A tramp printer, a sober, reliable fallow, had 
come along and was now working for them. 
This enabled Bob to devote some time to re- 
porting. They did not know, however, what 
moment their new typesetter might take the 
wandering fever again. 

Considering its field the Herald had proven 
a vast success. Encouraging letters, subscriptions 
and advertisements came in every mail. 

Baker Mills had started in at work for the 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


198 

Herald . He had gotten several advertising con- 
tracts, and over fifty subscriptions in near-by 
towns. 

Bart Stirling's name headed the subscription 
list, Mr. David Barnes's coming next. 

Nothing was heard in the room for several 
moments after the departure of Mrs. Colonel 
Harrington 's envoy. Finally, Darry swung 
around in his chair. 

“ See here, you fellows,” he spoke, “I'm stuck 
on an editorial.” 

“ And want some suggestions ? ” asked Bob. 

“ That 's it.” 

“ Say,” ventured Stet, “ why don’t you pitch 
into the Eagle outfit ? ” 

“No, better keep clean,” dissented Bob. 
“Tell you, Darry, give us a strong bouncing 
editorial on athletics.” 

“ Want my word ? ” drawled the new printer. 

“ We '11 be thankful,” said Darry. 

“All right. I’ll give you just the theme for a 
new paper : c The Future of Pleasantville.' Set 
your wits at work. Enumerate all the faults that 
are present, the remedies, the contrast when good 


THE YOUNG EDITOR 


199 


citizenship clears the situation. Tell how the 
Herald is here to push and start the boom. New 
men, new principals — I say this, because I under- 
stand that the local political pot will soon begin 
to boil.” 

“ That 's so,” nodded Bob — cc it 's on the fire 
already.” 

“ When that article comes out,” continued the 
experienced veteran, “it will just pave the way 
for one of the two parties to come and ask your 
help. I suppose you know they 'll be after 
you.” 

“ We are not to be bought,” announced Darry 
proudly. 

“ Perhaps not, but as there is a few hun- 
dred dollars in campaign printing in the prop- 
osition, you won't suffer by taking a stand 
and sticking to it. Hello ! Say, gents, here 's 
trouble ! ” 

All hands glanced through the open doorway. 

„ Coming down the cindered path was a stout, 
florid stranger. 

His buggy was hitched at the street curb, and 
he coiled a big horsewhip in one hand. His lips 


200 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


were set wrathfully. His whole bearing indicated 
determination and animosity. 

“ Who ’s the editor here ? ” he demanded, filling 
the doorway with his portly frame. 

“ Why/' spoke Darry politely, “ I represent 
him.” 

“ You do ! ” flared out the stranger. “Very 
well, sir, read that ! ” 

He pushed a printed slip cut from a newspaper 
into Darry’s hand. 

The latter read it calmly. He looked up 
with a slight smile. This infuriated his visi- 
tor. 

“ Oh, it ’s a laughing matter, is it ? ” stormed 
the man, slashing the rawhide furiously. “ I am 
the person mentioned in that article. I am the 
£ heartless monster who nearly ran down an inno- 
cent, prattling child/ ” 

“ Yes, sir,” answered Darry — “ well ? ” 

“ Well ? Well, I’m going to lick the man who 
wrote that article. I’m going to flay him, be he 
black or white, big, little, old or young.” 

“ Td do it if I were you — the man deserves it,” 
acknowledged Darry frankly. 


THE YOUNG EDITOR 


261 

“ Think so, do you ? ” shouted the visitor. 
“ I’m coming, Mr. Editor — ” 

He took a firm hold on the handle of the 
whip. 

“ Only,” said Darry, “ you must find your man 
elsewhere. 

“ Is n’t he here ? ” 

“ No, you are in the wrong office. This is 
the Herald . That article appeared in the Eagle.” 

“ Eh? ah ! oh ! Well, Em not sorry. Is the 
editor of the Eagle a full-grown man ? ” 

“ He’s full grown,” put in Bob. “ As to being 
a man — ” 

“You’re right ! ” cried the stranger. “No man 
would print that libel. Thanks, my friend. I’ll 
give you a sensational item for your next issue.” 
And away the stranger went in a hurry. 

Stet was on pins and needles to follow the 
stranger, whom he devoutly regarded as “ an 
avenger.” 

Bob checked his ardent impulse. At noon, 
however, Stet was off like an arrow. 

“ Correct ! ” he chuckled, returning in fifteen 
minutes. “ Say, that fellow nearly wrecked the 


202 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Eagle office. Hemp Carson butted in, and he 
kicked him downstairs, and Jasper Mackey — ” 
“ What about him, Stet ? ” asked Bob. 
u He won’t walk much for a day or two, and 
he’ll wear a patch over one eye for a week to 


come. 


CHAPTER XXII 


cc THE SCOOP OF THE CENTURY ” 

“ That's me, sir ! ” 

€C Yes, Colonel Harrington, we know you." 

Colonel Jeptha Harrington, magnate of Pleas- 
antville, had burst into the office of the Herald 
like a cyclone. 

Stet had seen him coming, and had quickly 
announced that the colonel was a little wobbly in 
his gait. 

Colonel Harrington crossed the floor to the 
editorial desk. He dashed his card down on the 
desk before Darry as if it was a challenge to mor- 
tal combat. 

“ Oh, you know me, do you ? ” snarled the rich 
man of Pleasantville. “ I fancy most people here 
do. I can buy and sell this town, I want you to 
understand, and I will brook no insults. No in- 
sults, sir ! ” and the colonel brought his fist 

down upon the table till the ink-bottles danced. 

203 


204 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Who has been insulting you, Colonel Har- 
rington ? ” asked Darry quietly. 

“ You, sir — the Herald , sir ! ” 

“ I wasn’t aware of it.” 

“ Don’t you tell me ! ” roared the colonel. 
“It’s spite work — mean, petty spite. There 
was some trouble about a bill — a little bill of 
Mrs. Harrington’s, sir — ” 

“ Which you paid — yes,” said Bob, who had 
moved up, to watch the colonel’s cane. 

Colonel Harrington glared wrathfully at Bob. 

“ And you think to work it out on us. In 
your last issue you notice all the one-horse church 
sociables in the county, and give five lines — only 
five lines, sir ! to the most important social func- 
tion of the year, Mrs. Harrington’s lawn party.” 

Darry did not reply for a moment. Bob ’s 
eyes said, “ Throw him out ! ” Stet looked as if 
he would like to help. The young editor, how- 
ever, realized that enemies were costly. 

He politely and quietly explained to Colonel 
Harrington how the matter stood. They were 
crowded for space. Outside of that, they would 
allow no padding to a gratuitous notice. They 


“THE SCOOP OF THE CENTURY ” 205 

would be glad at all times to print a full list 
of guests at any of the Harrington social gather- 
ings, but nothing further except as to the plain 
merits of the function. 

It took some time, but skillful Darry finally 
disarmed the colonel. In fact, the magnate 
departed in pretty good temper. 

“ Put me down on your subscription list, 
Haven,” he ordered magnificently, as he left the 
place. 

“ Now, is n’t that a triumph ? ” demanded the 
politic Darry, as Colonel Harrington sailed out to 
the street. 

“ He did n’t pay for the subscription, all 
the same,” suggested Bob. 

“ Wait,” said Stet, simply and enigmatically. 

About two o’clock that keen-sighted young 
ferret made a startling announcement. 

“ Ginger ! ” he bolted out — “ the colonel ’s 
coming back.” 

“ Sure enough,” muttered Bob, and stared 
hard at two companions of the august mag- 
nate. 

Colonel Harrington reappeared at the editorial 


206 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

desk*. He was in rare good humor. The two 
men who were with him Darry had never seen 
before. They seemed strangers to Pleasantville. 
Darry was glad of it. They did not look 
like very good citizens. One of them had the 
shrewdest eyes he had ever seen. The other 
looked hangdog in every move he made. 

The twain remained near the door. At them 
Bob stared fixidly. As he stared, he uttered 
under his breath : 

“ The mischief — I know them ! ” 

Colonel Harrington was slopping over with 
good nature. He slapped Darry familiarly on 
the back. Then he insisted on shaking hands 
with him. 

“ Haven/’ he said, dropping into a chair, “ I 
want to make a friend of the Herald .” 

“ Thank you, sir,” answered Darry, briefly. 

“ Square and plump is my motto. See ? No 
hiding under the bed. Nothing under the hat. 
See ? ” 

“ A good motto,” bowed Darry. 

“ I subscribed for your paper,” continued the 
colonel grandly. “That’s only the beginning. 


"THE SCOOP OF THE CENTURY” 207 

I can make or break anything in Pleasantville. 

Im going to make you, young man, — yes, sir, I 
99 

am. 

“ You are very good, Colonel Harrington,” 
said Darry modestly. 

“ Don't mention it. Now, see here : Did you 
know I was going to run for State senator ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, I heard so.” 

“ I am. Sure victory. Got the pull — and 
the money. Eagle supports me, party unani- 
mous. Don't want any friction. Now, look 
here. Haven: There's a thousand dollars con- 
tingent political fund. We 're pledged to give 
Mackey the bulk. How about one hundred dol- 
lars for you ? ” 

Darry straightened up, stiff as a poker. 

<c Do I understand,” he inquired steadily, “ that 
you offer to buy the columns of this newspaper 
for one hundred dollars ? ” 

<c That 's it. All right, eh ? Comes high, 
but bound to get it, eh ? ” 

“ Colonel Harrington,” said Darry, springing 
to his feet, his eyes flashing, his hand extended 
towards the door, “ leave this office.” 


208 two boy publishers 

“ W — what ! ” gulped the magnate. “ W — 
what ! I subscribed for your paper, I — ” 

“You had better go.” 

“ Or I’ll help you ! ” pronounced a fog-horn 
voice, and the big tramp printer, sleeves rolled 
up, brawny arms exposed, arrived on the scene. 

“ You hear me ? — gel ! ” 

He “ got ” the colonel to the door, and 
without ceremony shoved him over the threshold, 
preceded by his two friends, who looked very 
much bored. 

There the colonel paused. His swelling throat 
nearly burst the neckband. He slashed his cane 
against the side of the building. 

“You order me out of your miserable one- 
horse hovel 1 ” he stormed. “ Why, I’ll buy the 
building and burn it up. Won’t be bribed, 
won’t help the cause, eh? I’ll ruin you, I’ll 
sweep you off the face of the earth ! ” 

His bellowing tones had attracted attention 
from the street. A crowd was gathering. 

“ Come on, Colonel,” advised his shrewd-eyed 
friend, taking his arm soothingly. 

“ I won’t ! Order me out — me ! Why, you 


“THE SCOOP OF THE CENTURY” 209 

half-starved idiots, I'll blot you off the map ! 
Do you know who I am ? I can buy the 
town. More ! Im in a scheme to make two 
millions.” 

“ S — sh ! For mercy’s sake, Colonel, be pru- 
dent ! warned the shrewd-faced man in manifest 
alarm. “ You’ll spoil everything.” 

“ He actually put his hand across Colonel 
Harrington’s mouth to silence him, and dragged 
him from the spot. 

“ Well,” said Darry, with an attempt at jocu- 
larity as the colonel and his friends disappeared 
in the direction of the hotel bar, “ that’s another 
pleasant amenity of the life editorial.” 

“ Oh, he’s the limit!” cried Bob. “Support 
him ! Would you, Darry ? ” 

“On principle, never. For a bribe? Clean 
hands, Bob Haven, if we go down with a sinking 
ship ! ” 

“ You bet ! ” echoed Bob. 

“ Young man,” said the old tramp printer 
quietly, “ you are made of the best editorial timber 
I ever ran up against, and you’re bound to make 
it a go.” 

N 


210 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


The office subsided to average routine. 

About four o’clock a boy came in with a tele- 
gram. 

Bob did not notice it, but Stet was at a rear 
open window. 

He was listening to a doleful story narrated by 
Jeff Slocum. Hemp Carson had pounded the 
apprentice for turning up the paper for the 
Herald and Jasper Mackey had discharged him. 

Stet was handing him a quarter of a dollar to 
get something to eat and some fatherly advice, as 
Darry, tearing open the telegram, arose quite ex- 
citedly to his feet. 

“Work for you, Bob ! ” he cried. 

“ What ? ” demanded his brother expectantly. 

“ Wire from Bart Stirling.” 

" What does he say ? ” 

“ ‘ Send someone to me in the city at once. 
I have the scoop of the century for you.’ ” 



CHAPTER XXIII 


ON THE TRAIN 

Mean-spirited Jeff had played on Stet’s sym- 
pathies until he had succeeded in “ borrowing ” a 
quarter of a dollar from him. 

The former Eagle office boy had heard Darry 
Haven read the telegram from Bart Stirling. 

Then he had darted away, and forthwith sold 
to Hemp Carson the important “ tip ” that 
the Herald people were working on “ the scoop 
of the century.” 

The news from Bart stirred up Haven Brothers 
more than a little. They knew the young express 
manager to be no alarmist. The Herald was 
almost set up. It was due to print number three 
within the next forty-eight hours. 

“ Bart never slops over,” observed Bob. 
“ When he wires to send someone in a case like 
this, you bet it ’s news.” 

211 




212 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ You must go, Bob, forthwith,” said Darry. 

“I’d like nothing better,” returned Bob. 

A train had just left for the city. There was 
another several hours later, but that would arrive 
at Rockport at midnight. 

“ See here, Darry,” said Bob, discussing the 
B. & M. time schedule, “ routing Bart out at mid- 
night won’t do any good. I can take the 3 a. m. ; 
get to the city in time to find him before break- 
fast, and do the work by daylight, if there is any 
to do.” 

“ That is the proper arrangement,” assented 
Darry, and so it was settled. 

Bob caught the three o’clock train. There were 
not many passengers. Only one other got on at 
Pleasantville. He was a bushy-bearded individual 
muffled up in a big rain-coat, and took the smoker. 

Bob enjoyed his novel “ night hawk ” experi- 
ence. It was quite a sensation to feel himself on 
the track of news in the “ wee, small hours.” 

He had something to think of, too. Bob, as 
has been indicated, had recognized Colonel Har- 
rington’s companions of the day previous. 

“ They were certainly the two men who chased 


ON THE TRAIN 


213 


Percy St. Clair the night he gave me that mysteri- 
ous satchel to drop in the old well at Parker's 
Pasture," soliloquized Bob. 

This opened up a whole train of perplexing 
thought. That these two men were scamps, Bob 
did not doubt. The fact was plainly written on 
their faces. 

Bob wondered how they came to be so thick 
with Colonel Harrington. He recalled, too, how 
the shrewd-faced man had silenced the magnate 
while the latter was prattling bombastically about 
a large sum of money. 

“ There's something doing with that crowd," 
reflected Bob. “ I wonder if Percy St. Clair can 
give the clew." 

At six o'clock in the morning Bob reached 
Bart Stirling’s boarding house at Rockport. 

The young express manager invited him to 
breakfast. When they returned to his room, 
Bart said : 

“ I got onto a big thing yesterday, Bob — a big 
thing for Pleasantville." 

“ And, therefore, for the Herald ." 

“ Exactly. It is this : A new railroad will 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


214 

cross the B. & M. at Pleasantville inside of four 
months.” 

“ I have heard something about that,” said 
Bob, “but it was all vague — in the air only.” 

“ Well, the route has been decided on. Look 
here.” 

Bart spread out on the table a section of a 
printed railway map taking in Pleasantville. 

In broad ink lines there was traced the route 
of the new railroad. 

Then Bart exhibited a neat cut of a railway depot. 

“ That is the model of the stations they are go- 
ing to build,” explained Bart. “All this I am 
sure of.” 

“ Why,” said Bob with energy, “ I will hustle 
these right over to the electrotypers and get zinc 
etchings made.” 

“ The very thing ! Then take this note to its 
address — Mr. E. G. Lanyon. He is secretary of 
our express company, and my friend. I told him 
about your paper. He will put you on to full 
particulars about the new road.” 

“ I tell you this is a big scoop, if the Eagle 
don't hear of it,” said Bob. 


ON THE TRAIN 


215 


“ Oh, they are asleep,” answered Bart. “ You 
see, the railroad is no news here. Everybody 
knows about it. But to get details as to its route 
through Pleasantville, for you to give it out first, 
think what that means to the town property 
holders.” 

“ Bart, you have done us a big service.” 

“ Then I am glad.” 

That was a busy day for Bob. He went first 
to the electrotypers. It would take them until 
four o'clock to photograph the map and depot 
pictures, make zinc etchings and mount them on 
wood ready to print. 

Then Bob went and saw Mr. Lanyon. He 
found him to be a delightful man. He went 
with Bob to the office of the railway engineer. 
He obtained permission for Bob to look over 
the surveys of the new road, and Bob “ took 
notes.” 

By noon, Bob's head was fairly bursting with 
all the information he had attained. 

He was keenly excited and gratified. He could 
picture in imagination the splendid four-column 
illustrated article on the new railroad. He could 


21 6 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


fancy the interest and satisfaction it would create 
among business men. 

He could realize the consternation of the dull 
and dreary Eagle . It was, indeed, “ the scoop of 
the century ” — for Pleasantville. 

Bob casually noticed on the depot platform the 
same bushy-whiskered individual who had been a 
passenger early that morning. 

This man went into the smoker. Bob, en- 
grossed with active, pleasing anticipation, thought 
no more of him. 

Just as dusk came on, Bob restlessly strolled 
out to the rear platform of the passenger coach. 

The train had slowed up while traversing a 
stretch of track under repair. 

Bob got to the lower step to view the extent of 
the improvement. It would make a little news 
note for the next issue of the Herald. 

Without a warning, so quick that he could not 
save himself, Bob felt a hand shove him between 
the shoulders. 

“ Jump ! ” spoke a hasty voice. 

Bob was pushed free of the step. He went 
down through the air six feet, and landed ankie- 



HE GRABBED THE YOUNG PUBLISHER BY THE ARM. — Page 2\J 


• - 




















































































ON THE TRAIN 


217 

deep in a muddy ditch by the side of the 
track. 

Ker — chump, splash — directly on his heels his 
assailant followed him, landing almost by his side. 

The last coach drifted by. The astonished 
Bob stared after the disappearing train and then 
at the man who had jumped after him. 

The latter made a quick, wading dart towards 
Bob, and grabbed his arm. 

Bob saw dimly a bushy-bearded face, a rain- 
coat collar nearly hiding it. 

“ Hands off! who are you ? ” cried the indig- 
nant Bob. 

“ Got you ! ” proclaimed a gloating voice. 

Bob recognized the tones with a thrill. 

His assailant and companion was Hemp Carson. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


IN THE TOILS 

Bob considered Hemp Carson equal to any act 
of villainy, but he was never more astonished in 
his life. 

His feet were mired, and he could not easily 
get them free. Carson had him in a iron grasp. 

He was alone, in the power of the scheming 
scoundrel, between stations on a desolate, deserted 
stretch of tracks. 

“You pushed me — ” flared out Bob. 

“ I did,” chuckled Carson. “ I followed you 
from Pleasantville, lost you at Rockport, caught 
you up again at the depot, and here we are.” 

“ How dared you — ” again began Bob. 

“ Oh, no harm done,” scoffed Carson. “ I 
planned not to hurt you. Only a little mud and 
wet. All fair in business, you know.” 

“ What do you want of me ? ” demanded Bob 
stormily. 


218 


IN THE TOILS 


219 


“ Haven,” said Hemp coolly, “ I want that 
scoop ! ” 

Bob gave a start. Only now did he probe the 
motive of his secret pursuit and present predica- 
ment. 

“ What scoop ? ” he asked in a husky tone. 

“ c The scoop of the century/ ” quoted Carson 
with a gleesome laugh. “ Oh, we ’re weasels, we 
are — we ’re ferrets.” 

Bob collected his nerve. He surmised from 
Carson’s phrase that he was aware of the wording 
of Bart Stirling’s telegram. How much of the 
real merits of the scoop was Carson advised of? 

“You think we’ve got a scoop, do you ?” said 
Bob. 

“ Know it.” 

cc What ’s the scoop about ? ” 

“You tell. In fact, Haven, you will tell. 
Confess the truth, give me the details, divide the 
honors with the Eagle here and now, and we’ll go 
back to Pleasantville like two brothers, and no 
harm done.” 

“ And otherwise ? ” challenged Bob. 

“Why,” said Carson with a harsh laugh, tighten- 


220 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


ing his powerful grip on his captive, “ then you 
come with me. Half a mile down the road there 
lives a particular friend of mine. I’ll take you 
there, and search you.” 

“ Supposing you find nothing ? ” suggested 
Bob. 

“ Then it ’s you to a quiet and cozy attic till 
the Herald comes out and we ’re mortal sure you 
have n’t scooped us.” 

Bob had in his outside coat pocket the two 
electrotypes. In an inside pocket were his notes 
on the new railroad. 

Once Carson should discover them, all would 
be lost. Bob aimed only to put off a search. 

Carson had dragged himself and his captive up 
the bank of the ditch and into a country road 
that paralleled the railroad tracks. 

“ Go ahead,” said Bob finally. 

“ Go ahead — where ? ” demanded Hemp. 

“ Where you like. I won’t talk. Bring on 
your friend, and your attic.” 

“ I don’t get the scoop ? ” 

“ Never, on your life ! ” 

“ We ’ll see.” 


IN THE TOILS 


221 


Carson made sure of his grip. Bob had no 
chance in his powerful grasp. 

The lad was forced along the road. The moon 
had come out. Glancing down the winding road 
about twenty rods. Bob made out a farmhouse 
standing somewhat back from the highway. 

“ Is that your friend’s place ? ” inquired Bob. 

“ It is,” gruffly answered Carson. 

“You give me until we reach it to decide for 
keeps ? ” 

“ You ’ve hit it correct, young man.” 

“ I’ll think,” said Bob. 

“You know how to, when you want to. No 
tricks, though. See here.” 

Carson with his free hand pulled out a revol- 
ver. 

“ Well ! well ! ” jeered Bob. “ You ’ll be fight- 
ing with cannon in the streets of Pleasantville, 
next.” 

“ It ’s a desperate case — ” began Carson. 

“ I learn so,” interrupted Bob. “ Someone 
told us you had to put a chattel mortgage on 
your plant and ask an extension on your paper 
notes.” 


222 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“Shut up!” growled Carson, giving Bob a 
savage jerk. 

Bob uttered a sharp cry. It was play-actor 
business, but he did it well. 

He feigned to stumble over a bowlder in 
the road, and limped. 

“ Well, keep a civil tongue in your head, then ! ” 
giowled his brutal captor. 

Bob muttered something in a snivelling tone. 
Pie pretended to be all broken up. Carson 
chuckled, thinking the boy’s nerve was deserting 
him, and that he would soon give in. 

They reached the gate of the farmhouse. 
The dwelling was lighted up, and two girls and 
their swains were on the distant porch. 

“ Company ! ” growled Carson disgustedly — 
“well, we can go in the back way. Here, what ’s 
the matter with you ? ” 

Bob bad wilted. He hung a heavy weight in 
his captor’s grasp. 

“This is pretty near deadly assault ! ” he sniffled. 

“Then give in,” suggested Carson eagerly. 
“ Now rest a minute.” 

Bob sank to a big stone at the side of the gate. 


IN THE TOILS 


223 

Carson still held on to his arm, but thrown off his 
guard, he had somewhat relaxed the tenacity of 
his grip. 

Bob’s eyes were everywhere, though Carson 
never surmised it. While coming down the road 
Bob had deftly transferred the plates and his 
notes to his trousers pockets. 

“ You let go my arm ! ” wailed Bob. “ It ’s 
black and blue.” 

Carson shifted his grasp to the collar of Bob’s 
coat.” 

“ Give in, Haven,” he said. “ Come, you ’re 
bested, and there’s no use squirming. I’ll get 
some liniment to fix your bruises, and I’ll pay for 
the damage to your clothes. Hi ! thunder ! stop 
him ! ” 

The wheedling tones grew into a great bellow of 
consternation and affright. 

The captive had slipped the traces. One well- 
timed wiggle, and Bob Haven was free, leaving 
his coat in the grip of the astounded Hemp 
Carson. 

With a bound Bob cleared the fence. He ran 
thirty feet to an old tree stump. On this he 


224 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

had fixed his eye ever since he had reached the 
gate. 

Against it rested a bicycle. It probably be- 
longed to one of the young swains on the porch. 

Bob seized its handles, ran it across the garden, 
lifted it over the fence and sprang after it. 

Hemp Carson had followed him inside the gar- 
den. Now he ran at the fence. He was too 
bulky to run fast. As he dropped on the other 
side, he came erect agape. 

Spinning down the moonlit road a silver-gleam- 
ing thing of beauty, the bicycle was bearing away 
to Pleasantville the dauntless young reporter who 
dexterously saved his “ scoop of the century.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


TRUE TO THE LINE ! 

“ Bob, it’s coming our way! ” 

“In carriages, Darry ! Do I fill out the con- 
tract ? ” 

“ You are a genius, Bob Haven — I say it, if 
you are my brother.” 

“ I’m glad to be your brother ! ” 

“ Throwing bouquets ! ” piped in the indulged 
and volatile Stet. “Well, that’s better than up 
at the Eagle office. They don’t throw anything 
there but mallets. All the same, we’re it — Oh, 
yes, the Herald is It ! ” 

It was an animated scene — a fit climax to a se- 
ries of remarkable successes on the part of the 
new weekly newspaper. 

The railroad scoop had been the talk of the 
town. Taken in connection with the Herald' s op- 
timistic editorials, it woke up Pleasantville as the 
0 225 


226 


TWD BOY PUBLISHERS 


place had not been stimulated since the B. & M. 
first came through. 

Haven Brothers received all kinds of compli- 
ments. Business came in brisk. The little 
printing office presented a rare haven of industry, 
prosperity and peace. 

“ I’m stuck on you fellows,” observed Jim 
Dunlap, the tramp printer, that afternoon. 
tc And this is the top-notch climax. Mr. Bob 
Haven, you ’ll do, very decidedly ! ” 

As Dunlap spoke he fixed his admiring glance 
on the press. 

That article of machinery was running off the 
regular edition. It was performing that work, 
however, in a strikingly unique fashion. 

Bob had been hinting at making a sensation for 
some days. Now the culmination of his project 
had come. 

The original young typo had devised a scheme. 
He had got a carpenter to assist him secretly. 

The artisan had constructed a wheel of wood, 
inclosed with netting and having inside cleats. 

The crank lever had been removed from the 
press. A belt was run to the wooden wheel. 


TRUE TO THE LIN 


227 


And now, inside the wheel, squirrel-fashion, 
treadmill action, Christmas, the big office dog, 
was placidly, enjoyably supplying the power to 
run the press. 

“ I knew it would work,” declared the delighted 
Bob. 

Somehow, word got out around town of some- 
thing new stirring up at the Herald office. 

By the time two hundred papers were run off, 
twenty gaping, curious spectators crowded the 
room. 

Before the run was ended, half the town seemed 
filling the doorway or staring in at the windows. 

People chuckled and laughed at the novelty of 
the idea. But faithful old Christmas did the work, 
and they applauded as well. 

“ Don't you see,” said Bob to his brother that 
evening, as they walked homewards, “ it advertises 
us big. I'm going to do lots of things, Darry, 
to keep the Herald prominent in the public eye. 
Next week Fll have Captain Bartlett’s man back 
his automobile outside. We ’ll clog the wheels, 
attach a belt to the running gear, and toss off the 
Herald with a new sensation. See ? ” 


228 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Captain Bartlett was the rival candidate against 
Colonel Harrington for the State senatorship. 

He had a decided interest in the Herald , for 
all his political hopes hinged on the success of 
its endeavors. 

He represented the clean reform element of 
Pleasantville. A few evenings previous, accom- 
panied by some of the representative citizens, he 
had called at the Haven home. 

Darry and Bob were at the consultation, but 
rightly allowed their father to assume the initia- 
tive. 

The reform people would not truckle with the 
Eagle . They needed an exponent. The Havens 
were in complete sympathy with the correct prin- 
ciples which Captain Bartlett represented. 

In the next issue, therefore, the Herald would 
announce its unqualified support of the new can- 
didate. 

“ It means a big thing for us if we pull the cap- 
tain through,” Bob had importantly announced. 
“ They want lots of printing, but that *s business. 
If he beats Colonel Harrington, Darry, why won’t 
we become the official newspaper of the county ? ” 


TRUE TO THE LINE 


229 


The rivalry between the Herald and the Eagle 
had now become very bitter. It was earnest on 
the part of the Havens, malignant with Jasper 
Mackey and his cohort, Hemp Carson. 

The latter fell to deriding and abusing <c the 
measly kids who ran the baby sheet down the 
alley.” 

They lauded Colonel Harrington. In fact, all 
their hopes now centred on that magnate. People 
said that were the colonel defeated it meant 
Jasper Mackey's ruin, for the Eagle had risked 
everything on the impending election. 

They printed malicious slanders about Captain 
Bartlett, and in so doing antagonized all the bet- 
ter class of business men. 

With all this, it may be assumed that Darry 
and Bob had undertaken no light responsibili- 
ties. 

The question of finances had become an easy 
problem after the second issue of the Herald. 

Baker Mills brought in new business every day. 
The job work had so increased that they had to 
purchase a new press. 

It was hustling times down at the old shop. 


230 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


They had a telephone at the office, and had a 
connection at the house. 

The local telephone company had given them 
an advertisement and they had to take it out in 
service. 

About ten o'clock one evening, as the boys 
were about to retire, there came a sharp call from 
the telephone bell. 

Bob went to the instrument. 

“Who is it?" he asked. 

cc The office," Stet answered in a startling voice. 
cc Get down here, quick ! The hotel is burning 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A HERO FROM THE DEPTHS 

As Darry and Bob came out of the house 
a great glare showed in the eastern sky. 

“ It looks bad,” spoke the former quickly, and 
both broke into a run. 

By the time they had reached the main 
thoroughfare, the fire bells were clanging a general 
alarm. The streets were beginning to fill with 
people. Ahead of them, the fire department was 
hastening to a great patch of flame. 

“ It ’s the hotel, sure enough ! ” breathed Bob. 

Darry’s first thought was of the journalistic 
aspect of the affair. 

“ Come to the office in exactly an hour, Bob,” 
he said, as there was danger of their becoming 
separated in the increasing crowd. 

“ Yes, it looks as though there was big work 

for us to-night,” responded Bob. 

231 


232 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

Bob was soon in front of the hotel. One 
glance showed him that the building was doomed. 

It was a four-story building, faced with brick. 
The second and third floors seemed to confine a 
seething caldron of fire. 

The hotel attaches were saving what belongings 
they could from the office floor. The firemen 
had already two streams directed upon the burn- 
ing building. 

Guests, some of them half-dressed, passed 
through the crowds. Bob met Baker Mills 
carrying a fainting woman in his arms. 

“ All out safe ? ” he asked hurriedly. 

a No! ” panted Mills, white-faced and excited. 
“There’s twenty people hemmed in on the 
top story.” 

At that moment the second floor dropped 
from the rotunda supports. 

This shut off all further entrance from the 
front. 

Bob ran around to the alley at the rear of the 
hotel. 

The firemen were vainly endeavoring to hoist 
their ladders. They reached only to the third 


A HERO FROM THE DEPTHS 233 

story, and here the outshooting flames ignited the 
ladders at a touch. 

“ Look ! look ! ” yelled voices in the crowd. 

A cheer followed. Bob witnessed the most ex- 
citing spectacle of his life. 

From a window on the fourth floor there was 
suddenly dropped over the fourteen-foot alley 
space a great plank. 

It crashed in the window on the corresponding 
floor of the office building opposite. 

Then from the hotel window a woman’s form 
crept across the plank. Another followed. 

Bob made a dash for the next street. He 
knew the interior of the office building perfectly. 

He was up three dark stairways in rapid jumps. 
He ran to the rear and threw up a window. A 
glance gave him his bearings. 

Recklessly kicking in a locked door. Bob 
found himself in the room at one end of the im- 
provised fire escape. 

Two women and a girl, just come across the 
plank, crouched against the wall, overwhelmed 
with their frightful experience. 

Bob ran to the window. A boy was creeping 


234 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


over the plank. He was followed by one of the 
hotel chambermaids. 

Bob pulled the boy to safety. He grasped 
the woman just as her strength was giving out 
and she was toppling over the edge of the plank. 
More people followed. 

As the smoke momentarily lifted. Bob Haven 
thrilled. 

He recognized the directing spirit at the other 
end. It was Percy St. Clair. He had just lifted 
a woman to the plank. She clutched it with 
wavering hands. Midway she crept. Then with 
an awful scream she fell flat, fainting dead away. 

Bob crept out. He managed to drag her 
to safety to clear the way for three others. i 

The fire suddenly burst out from the windows 
of the third story beneath. 

“ St. Clair ! ” shouted Bob across the lurid 
space. “ Be quick, you have no more time 
to lose.” 

“ One more !” panted St. Clair. 

He started across the plank upright. He 
carried in his arms a girl rendered unconscious 
by the smoke. 


A HERO FROM THE DEPTHS 235 

As Bob took her from St. Clair's arms, he 
dropped her to the floor and grasped the brave 
rescuer in a tight hug. 

“ You did all that," he cried enthusiastically. 
“ Fourteen ! " 

“You helped," quietly answered St. Clair. 

He was rubbing his eyes. Bob in dismay 
noticed that his hands were raw and bleeding. 

“ Scorched a trifle," laughed St. Clair in his 
usual bored way. “We must get these people 
somewhere else. This building may go next." 

At that moment, armed with picks and axes, 
several firemen rushed into the room. 

They began to assist in directing and removing 
the rescued hotel help. 

Just then, the woman whom Bob had saved in 
mid-air from the safety plank returned to con- 
sciousness with a violent scream. 

She glared around in a frenzied way. Then 
she ran to the window and attempted to crawl 
out on the plank. 

“My baby!" she shrieked. “You have not 
saved it — my child ! my child ! " 

Bob detained her. St. Clair faced her promptly. 


236 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“ Quick ! ” he said — “ which room? ” 

“ The second down the hall. Oh, let me go ! 
I must save her.” 

“ Hold her, Haven.” 

Percy St. Clair sprang out on the plank. 

“ Come back ! Are you crazy ? ” yelled a fire- 
man. “ The plank is smoking, the top floor has 
caught.” 

He reached out after St. Clair with his pike. 
It caught in the rescuer’s coat sleeve. 

“ Let go,” said St. Clair coolly, and gave a jerk 
that ripped his arm bare. 

“ He ’s doomed ! ” gasped the fireman, staring 
aghast at the window. 

Bob was appalled. St. Clair seemed to be 
swallowed up in a vortex of flame beyond the 
hotel window. 

There was a moment of frightful suspense. 

“ He’s made it ! ” shouted the fireman. 

Percy St. Clair, wreathed in flames, a bundle 
in a shawl in his arms, appeared at the fire- 
fringed window. 

<c Someone — quick ! ” he gasped. 

He fell forward against the plank on his face, 



mm# & 

mmmm 




HE GRASPED ST. CLAIR UNDER THE ARMS. — Page 2tf. 




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A HERO FROM THE DEPTHS 237 

the shawled bundle his hands held upon its sur- 
face. 

Bob was out on the plank in a flash. 

“ After me ! ” he directed the fireman. It will 
need two.” 

His clothing was singed, a fiery blast nearly 
overcame him. Bob succeeded, however, in 
grasping the child wrapped in the shawl. 

He passed it backwards to the fireman and 
grasped St. Clair under the arms. 

The intrepid saver of fifteen lives was a dead 
weight. 

It was only after the most arduous efforts that 
Bob got him over the plank to safety. 

Percy St. Clair lay white and still. They had 
to beat out his clothing, which was on fire. 

The fireman leaned over him — he looked grave 
and shook his head. 

“ He was a true hero,” he said solemnly — “and 
it looks as if he had given his life for others ! ” 



CHAPTER XXVII 


CONCLUSION 

The Pleasantville Weekly Herald came out 
twenty-four hours ahead of time, and two days in 
advance of the Eagle with the full account of the 
hotel fire. 

Bob, Stet and the old tramp printer had worked 
all night at the types, while Darry sat turning out 
copy. 

Not a life had been lost in the fire, but the 
event was a momentous one for Pleasantville. 

Besides that, the magnificent heroism of Percy 
St. Clair had thrilled the public soul to the ut- 
most. 

Darry seemed to be inspired, as, after hearing 
Bob’s story, he sat down to write up the fire. 

Old timers said later that never had journalistic 
Pleasantville signalized itself, as in the Herald ’ s 
report of the great event in their little world. 

238 


CONCLUSION 239 

The account began with one strikingly impres- 
sive sentence : 

“A Hero Lies Dying At the Town Hospital ! ” 

There followed that which made tender-hearted 
woman weep and all humanity pitiful. 

It was a simple, pathetic story of a seeming 
“ good for naught,” who might have readily 
walked to perfect safety from his second-floor 
hotel apartments. 

Instead, learning of the fire-imprisoned refugees 
on the top floor, he had gained that fourth story 
by way of an outside balcony. 

Percy St. Clair had devised the impromptu fire 
escape, he had saved fifteen precious human 
lives. 

And, as if to make the story more pathetic, 
they had found, snuggling in his vest, a beautiful 
little white kitten he had paused to snatch up from 
the devouring flames while his own life hung in 
balance. 

“He was a hero,” said the Herald , and all 
Pleasantville echoed the sentiment. 

“He was grand ! ” said Bob Haven, almost 
reverently. “ I knew him best of anyone here. 


240 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


Knew him ? no ! for I thought him a worthless, 
selfish being. But now — ” 

“ He was good to me,” murmured little Stet 
sorrowfully. “ He may have been a keen one, 
selling Zebra dogs and empty trick boxes — but 
he was good to me, he was ! ” 

A strange thing had happened in connection 
with Percy St. Clair. 

Bob had gone to the hospital, whither St. Clair 
had been conveyed, twice each day since the fire. 

The physicians reported St. Clair in a danger- 
ous fever, and believed him dying. 

One of the physicians handed Bob a worn, half- 
burned letter the second day. 

“We found it sewed up in an inner vest 
pocket,” he told Bob. “ As his nearest friend, I 
turn it over to you.” 

The superscription on the time-worn envelope 
was undecipherable. 

The inclosure was blurred and burned. All 
Bob could make out, written in a delicate feminine 
hand, was: “My Dear Son, Frank,” and a sig- 
nature: “From Your Loving Mother, Celia 
Ismond.” 


CONCLUSION 


241 


“ That must be his right name — Frank Is- 
mond, ,, said Darry, when Bob reported the dis- 
covery at the office. 

The old tramp printer looked interested. He 
thought for awhile. Then he said : 

“ Haven Brothers, Fve been trying to remem- 
ber. I am sure that about five years ago there 
was a wealthy family named Ismond living at 
Greenville. That's about five hundred miles 
from here. I faintly recall, when I worked on 
the newspaper there, setting up some real estate 
transaction that a certain Celia Ismond figured 
in.” 

“ We’ll take a chance, anyway,” said Bob. 

So he wrote to Mrs. Celia Ismond, Greenville, 
a brief note, telling of the letter and inclosing a 
clipping of the fire. 

Bob entered the office three mornings later a 
little earlier than usual, to find a lady, deeply 
veiled, seated there. 

Stet had admitted her, and she had just arrived 
on the morning train. 

“ Is this Mr. Haven ? ” she said, lifting her veil 

and disclosing a beautiful but careworn face, 

P 


242 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Yes, Madam,” said Bob wonderingly. 

“ I am Mrs. Celia Ismond, Mr. Haven. I 
have come to you as my boy's nearest friend here. 
Will you take me to him at once ? ” 

Bob took Mrs. Ismond to the hospital. He 
introduced her to the physician in charge, very 
glad at heart that he had been instrumental in 
bringing mother and son together. 

That afternoon Mrs. Ismond returned to the 
printing office. She was trembling with mingled 
suspense and hope. 

The hospital people had detected a favorable 
change in their patient that morning. 

She narrated a brief, strange story to Bob. 
Percy St. Clair's right name was Frank Newton, 
a child by her first husband. 

About five years prior to the present time she 
had married a widower named Ismond. He 
turned out to be a cruel tyrant. He hated Wal- 
ter, broke his proud spirit, charged the boy falsely 
with stealing, and Walter ran away from home. 

Mrs. Ismond had never seen Walter since then 
until the present time. Once she had written him 
but had received no reply. 


CONCLUSION 


243 


“ He was never a bad boy,” she asserted be- 
tween sobs and tears, “ but Mr. Ismond, now 
dead, drove all the good out of him, making him 
vengeful, reckless and desperate/* 

“ Madam,” said Bob Haven promptly, pointing 
to the paper containing the account of the fire, 
<c that tells how proud Pleasantville is of your 
son ! ” 

“ I hope he is reserved for some great good 
in the world,” murmured Mrs. Ismond fer- 
vently. 

The widow’s prayer was answered. Frank 
Newton got well. 

It was a lovely afternoon when Bob went over 
to the hospital to find his friend sitting at an open 
window in an armchair. 

“ Well, we shall drop you, young man,” said 
Bob playfully, “ with a convalescent notice in the 
Herald.” 

“All right,” nodded Frank Newton brightly. 
“ Haven, did you people write that ? ” 

He pointed to the account of the fire he had 
seen for the first time that day. 

“ My brother Darry did,” said Bob. 


244 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


“ Is that the way people regard me ? ” persisted 
Frank Newton in a surprised tone. 

“ They love and esteem you as a true hero ! ” 
declared Bob earnestly. 

Frank Newton dropped his face on his hands 
for a moment. When he looked up it was wet 
with tears. 

“ Haven/’ he said brokenly, “ I won’t hash up 
the past ; it was bad. I was reckless, discouraged. 
But I never went back on a friend, and I took 
delight in fleecing men of the Ismond stamp. 
It’s past now, my mother wants me to go home; 
I’m going, I’m going to make amends. And 
there,” and his poor thin hand shook as he lifted 
the Herald , “ there you have given me my start. 
It is my certificate of good conduct — God bless 
you ! ” 

There was a solemn silence for some moments. 
Finally Bob spoke. 

“ Newton,” he said, “ I would like to ask you 
a question.” 

“ Yes, what is it ? ” 

“ About the first night I met you.” 

“ At Parker’s Pasture ! ” 


CONCLUSION 


24s 


“ The night you gave me that mysterious 
satchel. Well, the two men who chased you are 
now in town.” 

“Is that so?” murmured Frank Newton, his 
eyes opening wider. 

“ Yes, they are hand and glove with Colonel 
Harrington. They are also helping him in his 
political campaign.” 

The intelligence seemed to disturb Frank New- 
ton. He was very thoughtful for some moments. 
Finally he said : 

“ HI tell you something, Haven. I was in 
the hands of a regular crowd of sharpers when 
I came here. I was a good penman, and they 
hired me to get up some letters. These pre- 
tended to be from a Spanish convict who had 
several millions in treasure buried in Spain. If 
some kind-hearted gentleman would advance a 
few thousand dollars to send agents to Spain, he 
could share the fortune, besides getting a patent 
of nobility. It was an open-faced swindle.” 

“ And the satchel ? ” 

“ Contained these documents. These two men 
came to Pleasantville to fleece Colonel Harring- 


TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 


246 

ton. I had a row with them, got ashamed of 
my part in it, and left them. The documents 
you disposed of, as you know. I have no doubt 
but that they are working the same game on the 
colonel with new papers prepared by someone 
else. I don’t care much for Colonel Harrington, 
but you can warn him if you want to.” 

Bob did so. It seemed to break up the co- 
terie, for the two sharpers disappeared from Pleas- 
antville a day or two later. 

The colonel did not particularly thank Bob, 
however. He was thinking of little at present 
excepting the impending election. 

It may be added here that Frank Newton was 
true to his resolve to lead a better life. He went 
home for awhile and then came back to Pleasant- 
ville, to start in business for himself, and what 
he did I shall tell in another volume, to be called, 
“ Mail Order Frank ; Or, A Smart Boy and His 
Chances.” In that volume I shall also have 
something more to tell about the Haven boys 
and their friend, Bart Stirling, and several others 
who have graced these pages. 

The political conflict was now at its height. 


CONCLUSION 


247 


Election day arrived. On that day Haven 
Brothers distinguished themselves by a manoeuvre 
that was designated by old timers as “ the slickest 
piece of work ever done in the county.” 

As a result of two nights' hard work, every 
voter in the county found at his door before seven 
o'clock a copy of Herald “ Extra.” 

It was a clean, neat, elegant sheet. Its matter 
was interesting, convincing and truthful. 

Captain Bartlett came into the Herald office at 
noon that day. He clapped Darry on the shoul- 
der buoyantly. 

“Young man,” he pronounced confidently, 
“you have won us the day.” 

At three o'clock young Stet, who had been 
assisting Baker Mills distributing dodgers, stuck 
his head in at a side window. 

“ It 's all over but the shouting ! ” he declared — 
“ Bartlett, two to one ! ” 

At five o'clock Stet gathered a group of youth- 
ful adherents, and they piled the curb in front 
of the Herald office high with tar barrels. 

“ You have great faith in Captain Bartlett, Stet,” 
observed the smiling Bob. 


248 TWO BOY PUBLISHERS 

“No, I have great faith in the Herald . You 
fellows have carried this election. Say, Colonel 
Harrington has given up, they say. Had a fear- 
ful row with the Eagle people. He owes them a 
lot of money, won’t pay it if he is n’t elected, and 
they say the Eagle will go bankrupt.” 

At six o’clock the returns were all in — Bartlett 
9,311 votes, Harrington 4,208. 

One minute later the yelling, delirious Stet 
applied the match to the grand bonfire. 

Its bright rays illuminated a new bulletin board 
in front of the Herald office, announcing the re- 
sult of the election. 

A gay band came swinging down the street. 
It paused in front of the printing office. 

A cheer went up from the immense crowd, as 
Darry and Bob Haven modestly bowed the 
acknowledgment of the compliment. 

The Herald had come to stay — Haven Broth- 
ers had won the fight! 

Bart Stirling, just arrived from the city, came 
upon the scene as a carriage, gaily decorated, 
drove past the big bonfire. 

The vehicle contained three men, the mayor of 


CONCLUSION 


249 

the town, Mr. Stirling, and the successful candi- 
date, Captain Bartlett. 

“ Speech ! Speech ! yelled the crowd. 

Captain Bartlett arose, bareheaded, happy and 
smiling. 

“Fellow citizens/’ he said, “I will save my 
speeches for the senatorial chamber, where I hope 
my voice will always be lifted in the interests of 
the law, order and reform party that has elected 
me to this high honor. For the present, let me 
utter a sentiment which I know you will all echo : 
Three cheers for the Herald and its Two Boy 
Publishers !” 

And cheers were given with a will. 

THE END 



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